Coming up this Sunday ...

(Well, I ought to do at least one post this month. Clearly, my current focus on writing otherwise has cut into the time I'm able to spend here. One of these days I'll be back - or find at least some middle territory between the near-silent now and the much more steady posting of yesteryear. In the meantime, there's this:)

























Claire, Steve and I have been developing and rehearsing new material for much of the last month. Part of the text I've come up with is derived from the old Latin poem "Pervigilium Veneris," which I've loved for years. Though it seems to have been written quite late, during the era in which Rome had become largely Christian, at least officially, it feels like a real survivor from the happier pagan era. It's certainly a very proper celebration of Our Lady of Love!

Of course, I've added some new sections to it, one on bonobos and another on dopamine and the other fine neurotransmitters and hormones that do such a fine job of shaping our human experience of love ... or is that "love?"

As the poster says, we''ll be getting underway at 6:00 pm in downtown Marshall, at the French Broad Institute.

Hope to see you there!

Auricular festivities

A note from Tony Torn reminds me that tomorrow night's the next Auricular Hour:

The Marshall Auricular Hour music and literary series returns to Downtown Marshall NC, with a reading by Local Poets Laura Hope Gill, Rose McLarney, and Local Novelist Ed Krause on Tuesday November 17th at 7pm, at The FBI, 68 North Main Street in Marshall. The performance will be followed by a reception and book signing down the street at Lapland Bookshop & Arts, 147 North Main St, Marshall. Refreshments provided by Zuma Coffee.

THE MARSHALL AURICULAR HOUR marks the partnership of three cultural destinations in Marshall, North Carolina, thirty minutes from Downtown Asheville. The FBI (The French Broad Institute of Time and The River) is an arts venue and residency program founded by poet Lee Ann Brown and actor/director Tony Torn. Lapland Bookshop & Arts offers new and gently used books and select handcrafts in a storybook cottage setting. Zuma Coffee is Marshall’s meeting place for Coffee, Tea and Fresh Baked Goods.

Laura Hope-Gill is the Executive Director of the Asheville Wordfest Media Outreach Project, a poetry project which includes an annual festival as well as public access television, public radio, and internet presentation of poetry. Her book The Soul Tree: Poems and Photographs of the Southern Appalachians, which is a collaboration with photographer John Fletcher, is currently available from Grateful Steps Press. She offers classes and one-on-one support in creativity and poetry [at] the The Healing Seed (www.thehealingseed.com).

Rose McLarney works for the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project, and is completing her MFA in Poetry from Warren Wilson College, as well as a collection about changing landscapes. She is WNC Native living in Madison County, NC.

Ed Krause is the author of two novels published by Parkway Publishers, Our Kinfolks and Our Next of Kin, both set in the mountains of Western North Carolina. He has been practicing law in Western North Carolina since 1973. Ed will be reading selections from his upcoming third novel.

Missed all of the summer Hours, so I'm glad this one's not in conflict with anything else I have to do. And I'm in town. Don't know Ed's books, but I do enjoy Laura's and Rose's work; they've both been Wordplay guests, of course, Rose as recently as November 1st, and Laura was a co-host in the '06-'07 season. Should be well worth the drive down the river.