Richard Wilbur Sends Thank You Note

Good grief we do get busy though, don't we. The other day I received in the (snail) mail a postcard from Richard Wilbur. He wrote to say Thank You for the birthday card we sent earlier this month (March 2008). Specifically, he writes:

11 March 2008

Dear Mr. Christ,

I'm delighted to have been read at Barnes & Noble by the River Junction Poets. My thanks to you and your associates for the birthday card, and all power to your pens.

Sincerely,

(signed)

Richard Wilbur

Sweet Georgia Brown!

-- "It is our goal to appreciate and improve our talents, to share our own work and to communicate the joys of poetry with others. Everyone's poetry is valued."

River Junction Poets Mission Statement

Happy Birthday Lisel Mueller

Lisel Mueller is passionate about poetry at age 84. Yes, it's true. And I have the evidence to prove it. Yesterday in the mail I received a card from Ms. Mueller. She responded to the birthday card we sent to her shortly after our event honoring her birth, life and poetry. She wasn't at our event, of course - actually she wasn't even invited - because the event took place at the Barnes & Noble bookseller on Tittabawassee Road in Saginaw, Michigan, and she lives in Chicago. We started shortly after 7 p.m. That was the night Dave attended with his wife Wilma for the first time. They are both retired English teachers. Maureen was also there. She is heading back to California for a couple months now to make some dough ray her.

Anyway, about the card. It's magnificent. I so want to find a scanner so I can upload an image of it here. The card is about 3 inches square and opens up and is blank inside except for Ms. Mueller's handwriting. She writes:

3/5/08 Dear River Junction Poets,

I was delighted and honored by your beautiful card with your generous words about my poems. I am so glad that you enjoyed them and that in our present world of internetprose there are still readers of poetry. I am truly grateful, and I hope that, with readers like you, poetry will continue to "live"!

Best wishes to all of you,

[signed] Lisel Mueller

Yes! I want to have this card bronzed. I want to erect a statue. You can send a card to her as well. The birthday card we sent was addressed to her at The Poetry Center of Chicago as follows:

Ms. Lisel Mueller
c/o The Poetry Center of Chicago
37 S. Wabash Avenue
Chicago, IL 60603

Her birthday is today, March 8. How are you celebrating?

-- "It is our goal to appreciate and improve our talents, to share our own work and to communicate the joys of poetry with others. Everyone's poetry is valued."

River Junction Poets Mission Statement

Richard Wilbur

Tonight we had four people at our event at the Barnes & Noble bookseller on Tittabawassee Road in Saginaw, Michigan. Phyllis and her husband Bob were there, as was Tim and myself. We read several poems by Richard Wilbur. Phyllis and Bob brought six anthologies with them. At one point or another, Phyllis has taught from each of these anthologies at Saginaw Valley State University. We found several anthologies for sale that include poems by Richard Wilbur.

I noticed in Harold Bloom's anthology The Best Poems of the English Language, there are no Richard Wilbur poems. But in Wilbur's Collected Poems 1943 - 2004, Bloom is quoted in a blurb: "It is a consolation to read through sixty years of Richard Wilbur's poetry. He should be read in the company of . . . Robert Frost and Wallace Stevens." Interesting!

The general consensus among the four of us tonight was that the group was too small to have a group picture. We signed a birthday card to send to Richard Wilbur. I looked at the website http://www.poets.org/ to see if I could find his mailing address. There I learned that Mr. Wilbur lives in Cummington, MA. I Googled Cummington, MA and found the website http://www.cummington-ma.gov/ which has Cummington's White Pages, among other things. He and his wife Charlee are listed there. I'll put our card to him in the mail tomorrow morning on my way to work. With the card we included the Barnes & Noble store flier which has in it an announcement for our Richard Wilbur event at the store.

Life is beautiful and so can you!

-- "It is our goal to appreciate and improve our talents, to share our own work and to communicate the joys of poetry with others. Everyone's poetry is valued."

River Junction Poets Mission Statement

A Postcard from New Hampshire

In June (2006), when seven of us met at the Barnes & Noble in Saginaw (Michigan) to read poems by

Maxine Kumin on the occasion of her birthday, we decided to send a birthday card to Ms. Kumin. We all signed it, and Pat sent it to Norton (her publisher) on behalf of all of the River Junction Poets. Apparently the card was forwarded because Pat received a response from Ms. Kumin late in July. On a post card, Ms. Kumin wrote:

Dear Patricia,
Norton just forwarded the delightful birthday card you and the other RJ poets signed. My warm thanks to all of you. It was a happy surprise to be so closely read in Saginaw.
Best, Maxine, 7-18-06

A few days before our meeting, I read a few essays by Ms. Kumin. Pat, our Newsletter editor, had recommended them to me. I was able to share with our group that night at Barnes & Noble some of that information.

We are encouraged, and you should be too!

What is poetry? Fresh bread! We want some more! We want some more!

"It is our goal to appreciate and improve our talents, to share our own work and to communicate the joys of poetry with others. Everyone's poetry is valued." River Junction Poets Mission Statement

Mr. Wendell Berry Has Friends in Michigan

Mr. Wendell Berry Has Friends in Michigan

A few of the River Junction Poets met with a few non-River Junction Poets in August of 2006 to read a few of Mr. Berry's poems, to learn a thing or two about Mr. Berry and to see what connections we could make between ourselves and the poet and the poetry. We had nine people altogether. As usual, we met at the Barnes & Noble bookstore in Saginaw, Michigan at 7 p.m. We met on the occasion of Mr. Berry's birthday - ostensibly. His birthday is on the 5th, and we met instead on the 7th. Our group has an unwritten rule: we never meet on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday. The 5th this year was a Saturday, so we decided to move our event to the following Monday.

While we were there, we bought and signed a birthday card for Mr. Berry. I put it in the mail the next day. We do this now for all the poets we meet for, provided the poet is still alive. Mr. Berry took a few moments from his day to write a note to my River Junction Poets friends and me. We are so enthused! His note is dated August 14th, and I received it on the 23rd. It is short and to the point:


Dear Mr. Christ: I am grateful to you and your friends for your kindness, and I send my good wishes to you all. Sincerely, (signed) Wendell Berry


I was particularly enthused for this event and remain grateful for it because I was not aware of Mr. Berry's writing until Karen Choate, one of the River Junction Poets, recommended him to us. Reading his poems with a group of people and hearing the remarks others made about him, his essays, novel and poetry gave me a lot to think about in just an hour and a half. I learned from others in the group about the revolution Berry has been interested in for so many years.
The night of the event, while we were enjoying Berry's poetry, an artist among us asked whether Berry mentions in any of his poems the struggles of the small farmer. I thought the question was a particluarly good one, and we decided that Berry has chosen to exclude from his poetry that particular strain of thought. Mr. Berry has written about the struggles of the family farm in several essays over a decades-long span. I enjoyed it when Karen pointed out and read some of Mr. Berry's better-known poems. Any time he wants to visit Saginaw, I'm sure Mr. Berry will receive a warm welcome from the River Junction Poets.






"It is our goal to appreciate and improve our talents, to share our own work and to communicate the joys of poetry with others. Everyone's poetry is valued." River Junction Poets Mission Statement