RAIN BARREL SCRAPS NO. 3

Next big step for the Cloudburst Council was to invite and confirm participants. I know there will be the usual flux and change of plans right up to the weekend. There always is. As was mailed out to people we have a schedule that divides the weekend up with poets and panels and open time for enjoying the landscape. The final schedule will be shaped by the poets at the event. It is really exciting to imagine all of us being together. In many cases it will be old friends seeing each other for the first time in awhile and also people meeting for the first time. The probability is most of us will know about half of the people there to start with. We still have a ways to go but here is the narrative on the program development. First off the schedule included panels we brainstormed-up over dinner at a meeting last November in Rochester, New York. Having a mixture of solo poetry presentations of thirty minutes and panel discussions of one hour seems settled. Ken Warren of House Organ sent an e-mail update on the Ides of March, "What seems to be striking the sweetest chord with friends to whom I've spoken about participating in the panels is "Friendship Among Poets." He goes on to suggest:

I want to re-frame the panels and bring them into a closer confluence with Cloudburst

The Magic Citadel

The Plasma of Friendship

Economy and Friendship

Gift

If I plug Ken's panels into the existing framework this is how our updated program works (below). Ken had ideas about particular poets for some of these panels and as we move farther along we'll all see the apples hanging on the tree. Ken said and I agree"Let's process this together and attempt to organize ourselves in a way that feels good, stimulates vision and achieves purpose."

PROGRAM

Fri.

 5-7 Registration

 5-7 Light Dinner Served (soup, bread, green salad or on your own)

 7-8 Panel - The Magic Citadel

 8:10-8:30 Poesy

 8:50-9:50 Panel - The Plasma of Friendship

 10-10:20 Poesy

 10:20-10:40 Wrap-up

 10:41 Party

 Sat.

 8:30-10 Breakfast Served (oatmeal,cereal,fruit,pastry,etc.)

 10-11 - Cloudburst

 11:10 - 11:50 - Poesy

 Noon- 1 Panel - Economy and Friendship

 1:10 - 1:30 Poesy

 1:30 Lunch Served (cold sandwiches bag lunch)

 Open Time 1:30 - 4

Tour of Seneca Point of Emergence with Steve Lewandowski (optional)

 4-4:20 Poesy

 4:30-5:00 Poesy

 5:30 - 7 Dinner (hot vegetarian etc.)

 7-10 - Open Reading

 10-10:10 Wrap-up

 10:11 Campfire Party

 Sun.

 9:30-11 Brunch (like Saturday Breakfast plus eggs and meat)

 9:30-11 Trade Fair

 11:10-12:10 Panel Gift

 12:20 - 1 Further

TRADE FAIR

The idea for the Trade Fair is for those who want to trade to bring things they want to Trade or Gift.  It would be poetry books, broadsides, post card poems but also art work, seeds, plants, trees, pickles, dried corn, feathers, stones, really whatever the imagination allows. Our attendance is limited to thirty-five so it could be thirty-five of something or it could be two or three or one of a kind. The panel after the Trade Fair is Gift, based in part on Lewis Hyde’s book The Gift.

TOUR OF SENECA POINT OF EMERGENCE

During open time on Saturday afternoon (1:30 – 4:00 pm) Steven Lewandowski will lead an expedition to a landscape where legend place the emergence of the Seneca people from one world by way of this opening to this world. Steve will also share some of his knowledge of the Finger Lakes watershed.

.

RAIN BARREL SCRAPS---No. 2

When we first divided up responsibilities Stephen Lewandowski was self-assigned to the role of Greek Chorus. Trying to find a weekend that fit everyones schedule and had the Gell Center available had me looking for free weekends in April. While in the middle of that process The Chorus spoke.

A CAUTION FROM THE GREEK CHORUS

BEWARE of moving the date earlier

because up in them hills, the winter

is slow to leave and leaves behind much

mud, frozen ground and slippery slides.

The road to Gell is not great, the parking

worse, and snows last until May under

the dark groves.  Beware their glitter.

I scheduled something at Gell in

early April when in the lowlands

the zlotis and pinkups were in bloom

but behold there was an awful icestorm

that tore down trees, closed the roads,

and snuffed the electricity.  It was a cold time

and my nose ran for a week straight.

I said, "Nevermore shall I plan poetry readings

at Gell Center in April," and I have not unto this day.

So TAKE HEED ye flatlanders

these hills are slow to thaw

and schedule later.

                    Yrs.

                    The Chorus

The singing was pretty bad but the message from the The Chorus rang true.

 

The Greek Chorus has spoken

windows do rattle

tables do shake

I would trust luck

but my luck has a hole in its pocket

and my boots have holes in them too

and so does my plan

Travel through storms

tires skid, spin out or in that strange netherlands

don't quite firmly grip, kind of float

like the beautiful slow meander of the Normanskill

across the top of the asphalt road

queasy feeling like seeing the check arrive

when out for dinner with John Roche

don't want to study anymore ditches

even though I be friend

to a ditch connoisseur

April is a cruel month

The Greek Chorus ain't nobodies fool

I say we heed the raspery song

and wait for the warmer season

when the snakes have returned to their nests

in the boxes of letters in the basement

and the smart and colorful bird returns to the shore

of Lake Ontario to see the water turns from green to blue

(both posts on October 31, 2011)

There was a bit of concern as the I-Ching hexagram #43 Break-through was the original toss used to indicate the image and energy of Cloudburst. A bit of research into the Chinese calendar showed "The hexagram is linked with the third month [April-May]". The Gell Center was available and that is how we ended up scheduled in May and not April.

CLOUDBURST COUNCIL BEGINNING

THE NARRATIVE:

    In the beginning John Roche and I were talking about how the year 2010 was one that produced a number of gatherings of poets clustered around the centennial of Charles Olson's birth. 2010 was also the year of the publication of A Curriculum of the Soul book by Albert Glover. He and Jack Clarke started the project in 1972 with fascicles by Olson influenced poets. After 2010, the next year 2011 seemed devoid of the focus energy and shared collaboration of the year before.

   At our August 2011 meeting, John Roche and I decided we would work together and organize something for 2012. We shared a throw of the I Ching with our question being "How do we proceed?" The hexagram that occurred was #43 Kuai / Break-through ( Resoluteness). This hexagram is linked with the third month [April-May]. A first guide to the nature of Cloudburst Council is the commentary in the I Ching. “Cloudburst” is mentioned here as the release point or break-through after a long accumulation of tension. Later that night we threw out names for a list of poets who could be invited to a Spring 2012 event.

   Shortly after the discussion with John Roche, I was musing the language of our embryonic event with Albert Glover. Do you call it a conference, a symposium, a gathering? Glover mentioned Charles Olson liked the term council. Council as a name had possibilities. There was the council fire, council house, council flats of the native peoples.  “Council” from Latin, concilium, com- +  calare to call.

   In September, I made a trip to western New York State to visit some friends among poets. It wasn’t the only thing on my mind but part of the energy behind the visits was to see to the possibility of advancing the council. Ken Warren and Steve Lewandowski agreed to help and thanks to the variability of Finger Lakes weather I got to experience the cloudburst phenomena first hand (more than once) The power and force inside the burst sky opening rain with high winds and overflowing drainage was a inspirational situational sensation and reinforced that our still sketchy but developing gathering was worth pursuing.

   The particulars, including the most important one of finding a place to hold the event, started to fall into place by way of e-mail and personal exchange. In January 2012, Ken Warren, John Roche, Steve Lewandowski and myself were able to meet in Rochester, New York. and make some more decisions about logistics, program and invitation list.


THE SITE AND OTHER ESSENTIALS

  CLOUDBURST COUNCIL is being held May 11, 12, 13, 2012 (Friday afternoon to Sunday mid-afternoon). It is being held at Writers and Books Gell Center of the Finger Lakes (www.wab.org.gell//) Sponsoring entities are Rootdrinker Institute and House Organ.
.

PROGRAM

  This will be a gathering of friends, to relax and enjoy each other’s company. We can share news, ideas, stories and the wooded landscape. We hope to have an overall program designed to allow us to step into and out of the world of poetry and have fun just by coming together at one particular time and place.
Celebration being the most political of acts.

   There will be a spectacular program of poetry, panel discussions and special events. The final shape and refinement in the capable hands of Kenneth Warren with mine, John Roche and Steven Lewandowski’s meddling influence. Our meeting in Rochester was such fun and at that time we accomplished a skeletal body for the program. I of course am using the Cloudburst energy form to describe our progress in organizing. We have gone from a few wispy clouds in a blue sky day to the gathering of a few cumulous puffs and the beginning of darker spots in larger gathering cloudbanks. As we determine who is going to attend CLOUDBURST COUNCIL we will know better the Program.