May 30: Poetry Dinner

My poet friend Elizabeth Tibbetts (author of In the Well) and I recently resolved to meet one night a month and "be poets" together, making space and time to talk about poetry and write or share poems. Tonight was our first session, and we decided to really do it up by meeting at The Lost Kitchen, Belfast's coolest new restaurant. Over oysters, then halibut and mussels, we talked and talked, and then wrote some poems. I wrote a tanka (like a haiku, but with two extra 7-syllable lines added at the end) and a haiku; she wrote a short free verse poem which I like very much. So it seemed appropriate to share the fruits of our poetry dinner here.

My tanka:
Outside the restaurant
chimney swifts flicker. Inside,
lit candle, cocktail,
lustrous grey and gold oysters.
Across the table, dear friend.

My haiku:
Everything's local--
rhubarb and vodka cocktail,
mussels, oysters, us.

Elizabeth's poem:
The evening light slides
down like this river
oyster. Forget the innuendo
and remember the salt,
salt of blood and sea.
The lilacs are going by,
next the honeysuckle.
Tip the glass high, let
the last pale sip in.
Remember. Try it now.
Remember what you wanted
most, what drew you
like the chimney swift
to the flue.