Scanning old negatives of the Napa Poetry Conferences 1981-1986 (photos)

I've added more photos under the Comments section on Facebook. Check it out.

While scanning old negatives of the Napa Poetry Conferences (1981-1986), I didn't realize how profound a sense of community there was with the Napa Poetry Conferences (NPC), a tribe of poets, similar to California Poets in the Schools, that met once a year, and included poets from the Americas, and beyond.

Founder Dave Evans began the NPC with a group of Berkeley poets in 1981, the original series, where no one was ever turned away for lack of money, and the series ran until his death, in 1987, The late John Leggett, who retired from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, developed the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference (NVWC) fiction portion of the workshops in 1986, and the NPC took on its present form. Not the same. That's my uncredited photo on their web page (albeit a terrible copy). I hope to rectify that soon.

I'm still friends with many of the original NPC poets, among them, I treasure my long-term friendships with Donna Hilbert, Florence Weinberger, Kathleen Lynch, Sharon Doubiago, Sandra McPherson, Carolyn Forché, Bob Hass, Robert Pinsky, and others. I just found Joan Maiers on Facebook and I'm thrilled to connect with her after all these years.

I found in my Napa Poetry Conference negatives from 1983, a photo of Susan Herron Sibbet! I didn't realize that I knew her way back then. So many poets are gone, founder Dave Evans, Susan Sibbit, Maggie Meyers, Mary Rudge, Carolyn Kizer, Galway Kinnell. So many writers whose names I've forgotten. Let this scanfest be the beginning of an homage to our extended writing community, to both the living and the dead. In some small way, what I can give back to those who have nurtured me, are these old memories, photos chronicling the past. 

So many people I wish I had kept in touch with: Tess Gallagher, Diane Glancy, Laurie Deusing, Jess River, Cindy Frank, and more.

This is a sneak preview. I’ve scanned all of the 1983 negatives, and am about 2/3 through 1984. Need to clean them up before I post (mostly artifacts, or dust embedded in the negatives). Still to do, 1985....and I’ve only found a few 1982 negatives. Hope they turn up.

If you can figure out a way for me to get funded for doing this work, a grant, a scholarship, a residency, please let me know. Also, I am daunted by how I can present these photos, so many of them. I made a Facebook prototype where I used one photo as a main subject and the comments section to post related photos.

Here is a link to the NPC Bahamas poetry conference on Facebook, it's open to the public. A gathering of poets, Orange Hill, Nassau Island, The Bahamas, 1985. There are many more photos posted as comments below each main photo, which you may not see on a smartphone or tablet unless you click on the comments. You might notice the photo has three comments, that’s three more hidden photos.

— with Dave Evans, Robert Hass, Marcella Taylor, Glenna Luschei, Nathaniel Mackey, Carolyn Forché, Gary Sange, Kris Lauritsen, Sharon Doubiago

See A gathering of poets, Orange Hill, Nassau Island

More poet scans from National Poetry Week: Poetry Flash marathon reading, 1983, Fort Mason. With Gene Ruggles, Herman Berlandt, Mary Rudge. QR Hand, AD Winans, Max Schwartz, Darrell Gauff, Diana Sainz.

Mystery poets, 1980s, early 90s? National Poetry Week. Fort Mason. Herman Berlandt is the only poet I could identify.

Why I Teach, or Why I am a Writer, final draft

WHY I TEACH, OR WHY I AM A WRITER   MANIFESTO   —Maureen Hurley

due 12/13 SAT  5 min presentation/performance.

It's hard to choose between teaching and writing

each process informs the other.

See, I was an artist before I became a poet.

I was a poet before I started teaching kids art,

but I was also literary jailbait. It was a bootstrap affair.

 I arrived late to poetry all out of breath,

with things to say and nowhere to channel them.

I was a bad student in high school and college.

Least likely to succeed. I couldn't keep what I learned.

It was like a hive of bees swarming inside my head.

Stinging my tongue so I couldn't speak.

Why I Teach, or Why I am a Writer. 1st draft

WHY I TEACH, OR WHY I AM A WRITER

It's hard for me to choose or to make a distinction between teaching and writing as each process informs the other.

I was a poet before I became interested in teaching for California Poets in the schools, but just barely. The two events were nearly twinned. I arrived to poetry all out of breath, with things to say and nowhere to channel them. I wasn't a writer and I was a below average student in high school and college. I couldn't retain or access the information I learned in school. It was like a hive of bees swarming inside my head.

Kizer, O'Hehir reading at Mudd's

I'm emceeing at Mudd's Cafe tonight with Carolyn Kizer and Diana O'Hehir. Carolyn arrives dressed to the nines in heels and a mink coat. The audience is almost non-existent so we have a small, intimate reading. I hate the industrial cavernous space of Mudd's, in Santa Rosa, but beggars can't be choosers.

Diana reads about living on the earthquake fault. She said that poems fall into categories: children, parents, relationships. I don't believe in God but I'll try anyway, and then she writes a poem about salvation. Poetry of loss and of separation from the mother.

I said my mother's ashes gather dust on the bureau in my brother's room where the forgotten pieces of the discarded past seek eternal rest. A dog chewed on the crucifix, it's a secret hiding place of Sacrament, amid the tarnished golf clubs. Diana tells me to write of an apple and then relate it to my mother. I think the last known wild aurochs died in Poland in 1627, when did the last wood bison die? Fallen among the apples.