Sean and I agreed that the presents we came up with for our six-month dating anniversary in the summer of 2005 were a joint high point in our gift-giving history. I bought and framed the war/peace WWII newspapers, while Sean wrote to Billy Collins to ask him for an autograph for his girlfriend. Unfortunately BC didn't write back in time, so Sean gave me a book of his (with autograph) that he'd found in a used bookstore. Then, lo and behold, a month or so later BC wrote back, sending a little pre-printed poem as well as a note, "Hoping you and Michelle are still together..." (that ellipsis really said it all, don't you think? Six months seemed such an accomplishment to us then, but to a divorced guy it was probably pretty funny). Linda matted and framed both pieces of paper, and they're on the wall in my office. It was a great gift, and a wonderful story. I went to see BC read at Sacred Heart in Fairfield in 2007, and brought along a tiny picture of the frame taken on my LG Chocolate phone, to show him, but I decided it wasn't worth waiting in the long line of old ladies to show it to him.
We made up for it on Wednesday night, though! BC was the headliner of the 25th anniversary of the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, held on the grounds of the Hillstead Museum in Farmington, where my high school friend Meghan's mom was a docent years ago. It turns out that the woman who designed the house for herself, Theodate Pope, did so with the help of McKim, Meade, and White, the architects of the AAR main building. The ground floor of the house was open, so we took a walk through admiring what really is an impressive collection of French Impressionist paintings, but also little gems like the anonymous 16th-century Venetian painter who painted a Saint Lucy, head tipped to the side in a reverse of Titian's Salome, her gaze on her two cartoonish removed eyeballs on a skewer in her hand.
Sara's mom took us to the poetry festival once during high school, but I don't really recall any of it, besides it being hot. We got there relatively early, a little after 4, which meant we could snag a parking spot right on the grounds, and then a spot for our chairs with a good view of the podium. It rained at one point and we got wet (before Sean ran to the car to retrieve the umbrella, which turned out to be a good call since there were repeated cloudbursts/sunshowers for an hour or two), but then it turned brilliantly sunny, and stayed clear as the sun went down on the longest day of the year, as BC read his work. The garden itself is beautiful, the birds were singing, and the sun striking the trees and the house as it slowly set were really lovely.
When I saw BC in 2007, I recall being a bit taken aback by the dryness of his voice and tone; poems that had seemed sincere to me on the page suddenly took on a sardonic edge when he read them. I remember thinking he seemed rather bitter about life, having (recently?) gotten divorced. This time, though, it was perfect. Sean enjoyed himself hugely, and said he hadn't laughed that hard in a very long time. One he particularly enjoyed was among the brief haiku BC read--poems which, he reminded us, can only have 17 syllables (he noted dryly that plenty of poets write three lines about a frog and call it a haiku). This was also the only one to which he had given a title:
New England Haiku
Whose woods these are I
think I know. His house is in
the village though. He
Maybe he read that in 2007, but I don't remember it (a quick search of Google suggests it's one of his standards) but we laughed so hard. BC mentioned that he's engaged, so perhaps that has slightly improved his outlook on life!
After the reading was over BC was available to sign books. Of course, we hadn't brought any books, but Sean suggested we get in line anyway and tell him about the gift. I was reluctant, but that was really a great idea. He was so gracious, and evidently tickled by our story. He shook my hand three times, told us we seemed like a really happy couple, and then joked "but if anything happens, don't blame me!"
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