PAMLA, AWP, LATFOB

Or, alphabet soup with crackers, tea & me

This year—particularly July forward— has been filled with firsts for me: my first participation in the PAMLA conference, first trip to Seattle for AWP, first ‘girls trip’ with my mom and sister to Las Vegas, complete with attending my first Magic Mike performance— which culminated in a woman descending from the rafters on a unicorn.

And my first time meeting the other Katie Porter. Truly memorable!

There have been other memorable moments and things that I also want to remember, before I forget them. Here are a few.

PAMLA:

A panel on women poets that I happened upon just at the moment Plath was the discussion topic. Pictured: Plath’s doodled on history homework.

Marjorie Perloff’s purse.

I know I was supposed to be paying attending to David Axelrod and Marjorie Perloff’s discussion of Frank O’Hara and Robert Lowell, but I just couldn’t stop looking at her purse. I spent most of the session writing a poem about it.

Our audience, “Ian”.

For what I had expected to be a prestigious panel with some fancy people that I admire, we ended up with absolutely no one in the audience except this fellow, Ian.

He was charming.

AWP

This unsettling sign depicting a person in a wheelchair being chased by a giant toilet

.

My solo visit to the Space Needle.

Dinner with my CavanKerry Press family. It was truly the highlight.

LATFOB

Justin C. Key’s beautiful children, particularly the littlest who I attempted to befriend to give him a little breathing space to meet and sign books for people but she wasn’t having it.

And meeting my doppelgänger Katie Porter who asked for a photo with me because I’m the famous poet.

THE END.

All of it was great fun. In fact, a bonus photo before I go:

Floating unicorns for everyone. On the house.