12th Annual Northern Arizona Bookfest (Whooo-who!)

It's Bookfest weekend. I've been on the board of this darn Bookfestival for seven years. After the fourth year, I said I was done. But I stayed on. Now, I'm done. Or.....

Well, right now I get to just enjoy the weekend. We have Alberto Rios, Diana Gabaldon and Mark Gibbons tonight. More writers all day tomorrow (check out nazbookfest.com for the list...they're all terrific), and ROBERT BLY tomorrow night (Saturday). If you live around here, come to the Orpheum. If you don't, read even more poetry this weekend than you normally do. I've included a Robert Bly poem here......

Snowbanks North of the House by Robert Bly

Those great sweeps of snow that stop suddenly six
feet from the house ...
Thoughts that go so far.
The boy gets out of high school and reads no more
books;
the son stops calling home.
The mother puts down her rolling pin and makes no
more bread.
And the wife looks at her husband one night at a
party, and loves him no more.
The energy leaves the wine, and the minister falls
leaving the church.
It will not come closer
the one inside moves back, and the hands touch
nothing, and are safe.

The father grieves for his son, and will not leave the
room where the coffin stands.
He turns away from his wife, and she sleeps alone.

And the sea lifts and falls all night, the moon goes on
through the unattached heavens alone.

The toe of the shoe pivots
in the dust ...
And the man in the black coat turns, and goes back
down the hill.
No one knows why he came, or why he turned away,
and did not climb the hill.