As Wranglers are to the Ranch

I traveled West in May. I wrote my friends in Nebraska just before breaking north to my old stomping grounds. The trip was easy. Five days in the Nissan with all my possessions and Fia. Towards the end of the trip though I had doubts about moving away from New York City, moving towards a space that had no center focus, no Mecca. Over the summer I pondered the existence of a cultural hub out here that would still spark the soul and continue the excitement and potential that both Philadelphia and NYC had started. I met with Kaia Sand and Jules Boykoff at Christian Bok’s reading in Portland this summer. Portland is a hotbed of poetry, the kind of poetry that changes views, and creates new ones. David Abel has dedicated himself to a strong community of poets.

I want to start a community here in Olympia. Leonard Schwartz has his great Cross-Cultural Poetics radio show on Sundays at noon on KAOS. Surely there are many people out there who want to find a community of supporters….

How does one begin? How do communities begin? Like Ann Waldman said to me, “start with a table and some pens.”