Diane Cameron--The Cornelia Street Cafe May 25

I am so happy to invite you to join me at a reading in New York City--next Monday night--May 25th. 

I will be at The Cornelia Street Café –a fabulous place to eat and drink, and a generous, welcoming place for writers and performers.

The themes of the night will be cancer and caregiving and relationships and love and sex--(of course sex!) --and Amy Winehouse and romance and life and love and death too. That about covers it. 

Some former classmates from Bennington College will be reading as well--so talent and inspiration galore. I’ll be reading from “Love in the Time of Cancer” and “Looking for Signs” and from the new book in progress—and trying out some goodies that I only dare read in New York City.

If you are in New York please come—I would love to meet you. Tell your friends—it will be such a pleasure to meet Facebook friends and blog followers in three dimensions. I can promise you a lovely summer night.

The evening begins at 6pm.

Cornelia Street Café is at 29 Cornelia Street—between Bleecker & West 4^th. The subway stop is West 4^th Street.

Marie Howe Reads at SUNY Albany September 20th

For Albany readers: Here is an upcoming event that you should not miss. Marie Howe, poet, teacher, caregiver, and as of next week, Poet Laureate of New York State, will be reading her poems at SUNY Albany next Thursday September 20^th at 8pm. The reading and ceremony will be at Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue, at 8pm.

My favorite of Marie’s books is called, “What the Living Do”. Here is the poem that titles her stunning collection of poetry:

WHAT THE LIVING DO

by Marie Howe

Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there.

And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up

waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of.

It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through

the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off.

For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking,

I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those

wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve,

I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it.

Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning.

What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want

whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and then more of it.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,

say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless:

I am living. I remember you.

Vulnerability Backlash

Oh the morning after! I’m having a vulnerability attack after reading in public last night. The Arts Center of the Capital Region invited me to read from the new book and from my collection of essays and I talked about this blog and John’s cancer and our relationship, and about “The Amy Winehouse House”.

The best validation was watching the faces of people in the audience that I know are part of Cancer Land—they got it. They know the condescension that accrues around cancer and the pastel politics of treatment speech. But I also worry that I shocked some by calling Lance Armstrong “One Ball”. But really. And now reading today’s New York Times, if “One Ball” turns out to be “I doped my own balls”….what will we do with all those yellow bracelets?

But my overall feeling today is run and hide. I went out in public and read out loud. And now, well, just breathe into it, and wear pink, I guess.