The May 22 reading with Carol Jennings at the Politics and Prose bookstore in Washington, D.C., was a great success.  We had a standing-room-only crowd of approximately 100 that included family members, personal friends, and friends of poetry generally.  Carol and I were introduced to the audience by Barbara Meade, retired co-owner of P&P, who told us afterwards that it was the largest crowd for a poetry reading that she had seen in her 35-year association with the bookstore.  Carol read about a dozen of her poems; I read four somewhat longer poems of mine, “Cloistered Life,” “Visiting Saint-Sulpice,” “Tribute,” and the book’s title poem, “Food for a Journey.”  By the end of the afternoon, the store had sold all of the copies of our books that it had on hand. Afterwards, Ann and I had about 40 people back to the house for a little reception.  Ann deserves all the credit for putting that event together.

A related note.  Two weeks later, Ann and I were at a poetry event where several poets were reading.  We had to leave before the event ended, and as we were walking to our car, a woman came running after us.  She said that she had been at the P&P reading, and just wanted to tell us how much she had enjoyed “Tribute” when I read it at the bookstore.  It was nice to hear that from someone we had never met before.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, Carol and I have another joint reading coming up on Sunday, July 10, at 2:00 p.m. at the Writer’s Center in Bethesda.  I’m hoping that it works out as well as the P&P reading.