**Where Have All the Workshop Venues Gone?**

 

Since the Pandemic, there has been a tremendous overturn of venues that used to happily host open poetry mics. Some have closed, and some are no longer willing to make the space available. Zoom has become a contender, and has its advantages as well as drawbacks. In a Zoom reading, one can interact with poets from across the country and around the world, a rarity at best in the Before Times. Unlike a live reading, however, interaction is limited to private chats and public conversations instead of intimate chit-chats in a dark corner of the coffee shop. But nothing is perfect. With Zoom, Calling All Poets (CAPS) would have been doomed, and it still maintains an ambitious online schedule while waiting for its next physical venue to emerge. The Woodstock Poetry Society currently holds hybrid meetings at the Woodstock Library, an ironic twist since its previous incarnation, the Stone Ridge Poetry Society, had its origins at that town’s library. The ART BAR is no more, so Teresa Costa’s Word of Mouth Poetry series (WOMP) is on hiatus, with hints of a future resurrection making the rounds.

But readings are one thing, and have ebbed and flowed in the 40+ years I’ve been attending. The current difficulty for me personally is finding a venue to offer my RANDOM WRITING poetry workshop at. Past locations are often history, or have incarnated into high priced rentals that are out of reach of my wallet. Talks are in the works for a session at the Poetry Barn, a fine addition to the poetry scene here in Ulster County. I am also making plans for a one-day event at a private home here in Kingston, NY, a generous offer I will tell more about soon. But the old days of a side room at the library, a bar, a church have all evolved in this newly “upscaled” valley into big buck endeavors.

Now, it is America for sure, and Capitalism still reigns supreme, even as the costs of housing, food, and healthcare rise to criminal heights. Everybody has a right to make a fair and reasonable buck. But now more than ever, we need arts that are accessible to the other 90%, people who can tell the stories of life without trust funds and safety nets. Groups like TMI are doing this good work, putting out there tales of the real world that most of us populate. And certainly I charge a fee for my workshop, too. Nothing I could actually pay the light and water bills with, but what I believe is fair compensation for my time and experience.

I have an opportunity to offer a session of my poetry workshop under the auspices of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild. The stipulation is that it needs to be free to participants. A $100 stipend will cover my small expenses. However, I have reached out to three area libraries with no reply, even while emphasizing that the class would be free. I am at a loss now where else to look. Churches that once offered the use of their space for free or nominal charges are now making a business of it, it seems. I cannot think of a retail space that would be appropriate either, understanding how much they are all being overcharged for their own square footage. Finally, my own home is truly too small to host more than a couple friends at a time socially, let alone an eager group of poets!

Any ideas? I am open to suggestions. Perhaps in the spring one of the local parks would be an option. If the rent isn’t too high.

Putting It Together: DIY Chapbooks

 

About once a year, I try to make my own chapbook. I have a halfway decent printer, although I still mourn my old HP, which served me well for ten years. The new HP requires an internet account with HP, and like all so-called updates, has added unnecessary steps to accomplish what should be simple tasks. I don’t buy that “improvements behind the scenes” crap either. Built-in obsolescence at its finest. But I’ve figured it out pretty much, and as soon as that color ink cartridge arrives (cheapest at Amazon, though I’ve minimized my purchases there) I’ll be ready to go.

There are programs out there to make my life easier when it comes to doing layouts, but I fumble through it pretty much manually. Last of the great eye ballers, I should write down more of my method while I’m doing it, but no. That would be no challenge! The layout is horizontal, and I create two columns. I fool with the margins and gutter, whatever that is, and print up a lot of test pages before going into full production. Hence, my press runs are quite small. I just don’t have the patience to create 500 copies of a 20-page chapbook. And actually, thank goodness it is a chapbook, because I still haven’t figured out how to number the pages. With a work this brief, it’s unnecessary, truly.

I do have fun with the cover, and that’s one of the big attractions for me to do it myself. The illusion of total control. I’ve been dabbling in collage and other visual expressions, but they’re really not clicking for me. With this chapbook, I’ve defaulted to a simple design that has served me for several volumes: white cover, black title and author lines in various fonts, and a photo added from my phone or elsewhere. I feel like I cheated a little with this one, since although the poems are from a monthly series I did in 2015, the photo dates from a year or two later. It’s cropped from a larger image, and was taken in the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. It seems to suit the mood, and grab the eye.

I’ll have the place to myself this weekend, so we’ll see where all the daily chores of living a decent human life fall on the list. I may just focus on this, and give myself something new to offer on April 30^th, when I take part in a Poetry Month marathon at the Woodstock Library. In person. Real people. I can hardly wrap my head around it.