Winter Festival of Poetry

I attended the Winter Festival of Poetry on Sunday February 27th, at the Avol’s Bookstore in Madison, Wisconsin. The seven poets that performed were Fabu, Dave Scheler, Martha Kaplan, Robin Chapman, Andrea Photos, Sandy Stark. I attended this particular reading because it was conveniently going on while my mom and I were waiting for my sisters soccer practice to end, so we decided to check it out

The Avol’s is a small bookstore, but there was maybe only 10 people in attendance so we were able to all sit comfortably. My mom and I were one of the last to arrive and sat in the back row. We were only able to stay for the first two poets, Fabu, and Robin Chapman.

Fabu was the first to perform and introduced herself as the Fabulous Fabu. She had a very soothing soft spoken voice and she dragged on certain words. She also seemed to have a movement/gesture for each line. One of the poems she read that stuck out to me the most was about President Obama, which talked about his strength, confidence and how we the people believe in the hope he brings.

Robin Chapman went next, she was an older lady who had a great storytelling voice. She wasn’t as active with her movements as Fabu was, but she did use subtle hand gesture every now and then. Most of the poems she read were nature poems, so they honestly all blended together for me.

I had never been to a poetry reading before so I really enjoyed the new experience, even if I didn’t care for all the poem that were read. I think I may have enjoyed the reading more if had been able to do some more research about the poets, and would have known their style of poetry before hand. I would have liked to stay a little longer too, to experiences some of the other poets as well.