Saturday, July 28, 2007

SF Poetry Festival - Redux


Still too blown away to write anything - Friday at the Palace of Fine Arts was WONDERFUL as was the reading on Saturday at Caffe Trieste and to top it off, the reading at the Palace of Fine Arts tonight. Caffe Trieste was really crowded - here is a picture of Jack and Kareem before Lawrence arrived (Kareem is an Egyptian American who read the poems of the Iraqi writer who could not get clearance to come to the US in time to read himself):



During the reading in Arabic, it was so hot in the Caffe that Beth and I stepped out for air and ended up having coffee around the corner at Steps of Rome. We started back to Trieste and ran into Jack Hirschman on the street, which was surprising because we thought the event would still be going on. Had a delightful conversation with the current Poet Laureate, who signed both of our books and gave me his email address, offering to send me a translation he did of a modern Greek poet. The guy translates into and out of nine languages in addition to being a terrific writer and the sweetest person ever. We got hugs and kisses (now I have been hugged and kissed by two of San Francisco's Poet Laureates - I'll stop there, thanks, the others are women) and promised to go to the Palace of Fine Arts tonight (we had already planned to do so).

The readings tonight at the POF were really good. I got a photo of Beth misbehaving outside before the festivities started:


Afterwards, we hung out and got a lot of the poets to sign our books. I had a lot of fun but Mr. Ferlinghetti was conspicuous in his absence and I wondered what happened to him (as apparently, did a lot of other people). Hope he did not party too hard at the Caffe!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome pictures! Love the composition with the TA tower in the background and the card reading ad. What an honor to get to see Mr. F just once in a lifetime. S

Mizshely said...

Really was a super honor to get to see Mr. Ferlinghetti in person. We all need that experience - those eyes of his are extraordinarily bright!

Mizshely said...

Really was a super honor to get to see Mr. Ferlinghetti in person. We all need that experience - those eyes of his are extraordinarily bright!