Mice and Volcanoes

Dan Morris and Richard Boada

What do mice and volcanoes have to do with each other? Not much except they were both subjects of poems that we heard on Friday night.

Raise your hand if you have been to a poetry reading before. No? They are lots of fun.

For our date night we went to a poetry reading that our friend Dan Morris was doing at a local book shop. Dan's friend Richard Boada came into town for the event and read some of his poems as well.

David, Me, Kitty and Dan

There's something special about being able to hear a poem read by its author. When I read poetry, I have my own voice in my head and that's fine and good, but it's supremely cool to hear it read in the voice it was written in.

My sweet friend Kitty, Dan's wife, sent me a copy of his chapbook in the mail as a special surprise awhile back. I am a lover of good poetry and Dan's poetry is no exception. I especially like the poems where his sense of humor comes out a little bit.

We also loved the venue. The Gnu's Room is a small, independent, non-profit, used-book store. It's one of those places with a lot of character that you don't see very often--old creaky wood floors and stacks of books with little tschotchkes like Shriner bobble-heads, metal gnu sculptures and dusty chess sets on the tops of the shelves and tucked into the nooks and crannies. 

 When you walk in it smells like coffee. I don't drink coffee but I have loved the smell of it for as long as I can remember.

After the reading we headed back to Dan and Kitty's house for dessert. The highlight of the evening may have been the poetry, but the warm and spicy Apple Brown Betty with creamy vanilla ice cream melting down its sides like molten lava was definitely a deliciously fitting way to cap it all off.

P.S. You can buy Dan's chapbook "Following the Day" in Kitty's Etsy shop, Fritzi Marie Vintage. You'll love it.

P.P.S. I'm still on my 31 day journey of finding joy. You can read those posts HERE.