TLA 2018

I just spent an amazing week at the annual conference of the Texas Library Association. This year it was in my "back yard," in Dallas! That made it fun to host events at my house and gather a big gaggle of poets! It was pretty amazing that 19 poets were able to attend and participate in TWO poetry events at the conference.  That included Greg Pincus, David L. Harrison, Brod Bagert, Jorge Argueta, Nancy Bo Flood, Carmen Bernier-Grand, Margarita Engle, Kathi Appelt, Liz Steinglass, Holly Thompson, Jen Bryant, Laura Shovan, Bob Raczka, Eric Ode, April Halprin Wayland, Juan Felipe Herrera, Janet Wong, Ann Whitford Paul, and Guadalupe Garcia McCall. 

We led a pre-conference "Poetry Rodeo" workshop for four hours that had the poets sharing ideas for engaging with poetry in all areas of the curriculum, from math to science to mindfulness to fine art and more. Each participant received a bag of free poetry books!


Then, five of these poets were sponsored for the 14th annual Poetry Round Up, with another dozen or so chiming in to read their poetry in a spontaneous jam of poetry! 

Plus, we met in between at the Dallas Public Library to share ideas and approaches, raise questions, film videoclips, and just laugh, relax, and inspire each other. What a privilege and a pleasure! 

We also gathered for a fun dinner all together 

and had lunch at the Dallas Farmers' Market

Are you familiar with the works of these poets? Here's just a sampling:

And here we are ALL together!