Poets are a quirky bunch of people.
I mean that in the nicest way possible. Although they sometimes look standoffish, the majority of them are the kindest and most welcoming group of people around.
Once a year, these quirky people all gather in Fredericton for a weekend of meeting other out of the ordinary people and share poetry with the community. This is commonly known as Poetry Weekend, these events normally take place in Memorial Hall at the bottom of UNB campus.
Organizers decided to try something new this year and hosted one of the events, Poet-Palooza, away from the old walls and stained glass windows of Memorial Hall.
Corey Redekop is the writer in residence at the Fredericton Public Library and one of the organizers of Poet-Palooza. He is also the guy who was urging people to drink the free wine at Gallery 78 on Saturday.
“I cracked open the wine thinking the poets would flock here,” said Redekop, laughing.
Redekop told the audience he wanted to get one event downtown for people who couldn’t make it up to campus. The first suggestion was to host it at the library, but that was unable to work out due to renovations. Gallery 78 swooped in and saved the day.
Poet-Palooza had seven poets from across Atlantic Canada performing and one New York native, Jan Conn.
The small lobby and adjoining rooms filled up quickly with poet-fanatics who all seemed to know each other from somewhere. The inviting air made those who came without any company feel welcome in old house turned gallery.
The poets themselves were as varied as the poems they read. From pinochle to “old crooked fellows”, small-man syndrome to heaven, blood oranges to navels and everything in between was in the poems preformed at the reading.
There was only one kerfuffle during the event. A member of the audience, irritated with the number of cameras trying to capture the moment, insisted that he “would rather hear the f-word” in poetry than hear the “beeps” of cameras.
This resulted in an uncomfortable silence as photographers looked around to see if there was any rule stating “no camera beeps allowed.” No rule was found but cameras were quickly put away anyway, to prevent another outburst.
Like I said, poets are quirky.
