You may remember I mentioned the Poetry World Series, an annual event at the Mill Valley Library. This event, organized by Becky Foust and Melissa Stein (below), combines poetry with the structure of a baseball game.
There are two teams of three poets each, an emcee, and judges. This is inning eight, the gracious and funny Matthew Siegel and I were pitched the phrase “zoo animals.” For each inning, the audience “pitches” topics, and one poet from each team “bats” their poem at the topic, no prep beforehand. We even each have walk up music.
Dean Rader was the charming emcee, and I was on the red team (note my borrowed red Diablo’s baseball shirt and cap), along with Raina Léon and Peter Kline. The blue team was George Higgins, Danusha Lameris and Matthew Siegel. Susan Terris and Brian Murphy were the judges–who scored points for each team for each inning.
In the end, our team lost by two runs, but all the poems were god, and I think everyone had a great time. I know I did. You can see the intro and all the innings I was in here, the whole series was too big to post.