This was us on January 16th, 2008. We met at the Barnes & Noble bookstore on Tittabawassee Road in Saginaw, MI to read poems by Philip Levine. We talked about him and his work, the Spanish Civil War, ourselves, you name it. And isn't that the hallmark of great poetry? It includes everything. Nothing is out of reach for great poetry.

Click the picture to see a larger version of it.
Left to right: Andy, Marion, Maureen, Bev, Roz.
Photographer: anonymous fellow citizen
Guess which three are 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

Good Woman

When James Aloysius McGillicuddy
had killed the woman he loved
and refused to talk about it
he found himself making explanations
to himself:
"She could change herself
into a bubble for me to play with.
'I'll be your bubble' she says to me
'kiss me kick me kill me
break me like a big rainbow bubble
I shall be light for you
light as a lingering loving bubble
take me throw me handle me with care
or finger me like a fool
and see me vanish before your eyes.'"

And after thus quoting the woman he had killed
James Aloysius McGillicuddy began wondering to himself
whether she had talked like that so fierce so funny
whether he was imagining things after the excitement
of sending a slug of lead into a woman's bosom and yet
he swore to himself:
"She was a bubble she told me
she was a bubble made for me
and nobody else and I could
make her or break her
and why the hell I broke her
I dont [sic] know
she was a goddam good woman
I dont [sic] know why it happened
she was such a goddam good woman."

Carl Sandburg
from Poems for the People published by Ivan R. Dee, Chicago, 1999.
'Good Woman' was written when Sandburg lived in Chicago and worked as a journalist for The Day Book and Daily News.

I'm including this poem here because I like the omniscience of the narrator as it plays against the ignorance of McGillicuddy. Also because it reminds me of poems in the Spoon River Anthology. Maybe Edgar Lee Masters unwittingly helped Sandburg become what some regard as an urban Walt Whitman.

from Valerie Bailey Jan 6, 2008:

Dear Andrew,


Your programs sound delightful, but there is no way I can ever attend one. I am way down here in San Antonio,Texas and don't have the funds or the health to travel to Michigan, although that would be great fun.


We have the same problem down here with small turnouts for great poetry. A lot of people just don't know what they are missing in camaraderie and inspiration. We have venues all over town at the various Barnes & Nobles and at other coffee houses and cafes. Our city really has a great community of poets and I am very active in as many as possible. I am the current Poet Laureate for the San Antonio Poets Association and I am a councilor for the Poetry Society of Texas and a board member of the Laurel Crown Foundation (a non-profit literary foundation for the promotion of poetry in the San Antonio area). I am also the editor of The Encore, the anthology of prize poems for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.


I applaud your efforts to keep poetry alive and well in Michigan. Do you know Margo Lagattuta. She is a friend of mine in Rochester, Michigan—very active in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies.


Good luck with your Carl Sandburg event.


Viva Poetry!


Valerie Bailey