Marie Gauthier

Last week I met with the rest of the Collected Poets Series (CPS) board to begin planning the 2010 readings.  After we’d been at it for about 3 hours, Lance showed up with the boys to check in, and asked if we’d seen the “dragonfly tornado” across the street.  Naturally, we poet/shut-ins had noticed nothing of the kind.

And he wasn’t kidding!  This was no small thing — hundreds of dragonflies, easy.  It was about twilight, humid warm air, mosquitoes out in force, the perfect conditions for dragonflies to swarm, though I’ve never seen it before.  Somebody took pictures, so I’m hoping to have one to share at some point, because it was amazing!

As is inevitable in a roomful of poets, a poem challenge was issued for each of us to write a poem incorporating the words “dragonfly tornado”.  The winner will receive a book of poems from each of the participating poets.  We have an additional two weeks to work on it before turning in the poems for judging, but my mind’s been buzzing with ideas all week, so that’s the poem I’m writing, and I certainly can’t post it, or it could skew the results — we’re judging blind.

All this to say that although I’m not posting this week’s draft, I do indeed have one.  I promise I’m not slacking off!