A Poet In Paradise: My Impressions of A Writer's Conference

Last Wednesday, November 28th, I flew down to New Orleans to take part in a writers’ conference, the Faulkner Words and Music Festival, since I had been second runner-up in their poetry competition. Those people are nice enough to invite and provide a tuition free opportunity to writers who come close to winning. Their generosity is highly appreciated. The flight down was as pleasant as flying can be nowadays. We are all familiar with the process of humiliation, embarrassment and physical discomfort that is endemic in commercial air travel, so I won’t belabor that issue. But the flights were on time and no worse than being crammed into an aluminum tube, forced to sit on a cramped uncomfortable seat in the company of disease ridden co-passengers is intended to be.

The conference took place in a posh French Quarter venue, the Hotel Monteleone. It is a lovely place; old and prestigious, ornate and impressive. Of course, since I had to pay for my own lodging I didn’t stay there. No, I stayed at a place a few blocks outside the Quarter (notice how I slip into the jargon of a native of New Orleans?) on O’Keefe Avenue, the Quality Inn and Suites. I was expecting the worst. I was almost wishing for the worst. But I was disappointed to find absolutely no material for ridicule in my accommodations. The room was clean, the amenities were fine, the condition of the place overall was adequate and the breakfast was hot and free and pretty darn good. I couldn’t even find an unpleasant or incompetent employee in the four nights I stayed. They were all unfailingly pleasant and helpful. That just goes against everything I’ve come to expect when I travel to big cities.

It surprises me how non-social I’ve become over the years since I retired. Crowds, unless at a concert or some other event, are nearly repulsive. Club-like atmosphere can be repulsive. And the Faulkner – Wisdom, Words and Music Festival is a club-like event. Most of these folks know each other. Many are published authors, some regionally well known, several are widely known and this is an annual deal for them. They enter the contest every year. Often the winners come from their “membership”. And they socialize like crazy. I knew it would be a difficult week for me, socially speaking. I figured beer and my uncanny ability to lurk unnoticed around the edges of a room would help me get through the thing.

At the first luncheon program I walked out of the session after one beer in the bar. There wasn’t a struggling writer in the room or, if there was one, he or she was wearing the cloak of yuppie-dom quite nicely. Even the real youngsters in the group were somewhat pretentious in an MFA kind of way. My name tag said “Writer” in big letters. But when I added the subtext of poet as the conversation began these people suddenly acted like I was a rabid raccoon. On the other hand, in a couple of cases my mentioning of poets and poetry seemed to elicit a kind of sympathetic feeling as if I had a bad case of shingles or perhaps leprosy. It was kind of funny actually. On the first day of the conference I couldn’t find another poet. There were some around, I know, and a group of them were scheduled to be there on Sunday the final day of the event.

Now that doesn’t mean that the programs on the first day were dull or lacking in interest. On the first morning we were treated to small readings and mini-lectures by a varied and rather fascinating selection of authors. The day started with a panel involving a nice book called “Meanwhile, Back at the Café DuMonde…” by Peggy Sweeney McDonald. It was funny stuff and very good. There was even a nice jazz trumpet solo by one of the panel members. Then there were a couple of historian type authors followed by a music writer. Next came two more historians, a graphic artist and then a panel of fiction writers. Nice. Lunch was at a posh joint called Arnaude’s. As I said, I escaped that venue and had a crawfish omelet at a little café nearby.

The festival so far had been chock full of “cultcha” but I decided to skip the club meeting on Thursday night. They called it a party but that was just a ruse. It was actually a ritual involving the worship of the New Orleans Saints, disregarding their completely futile attempt to beat the Atlanta Falcons. I’m not into NFL shamanistic practices so I opted out.

Anyway, I returned to the conference site for the afternoon session on Thursday which was a workshop about the pleasures and perils of writing about dead people. I mean real dead people as opposed to zombies or ghosts or vampires. Four authors who have written non-fictional accounts of various famous or semi-famous people’s lives spoke about their books then participated in a panel discussion about that type of writing. It was interesting stuff and when I get back home I intend to get their books out of the library, if they’re available. If I bought every book I was interested in that was being sold at this conference I’d surely be a starving poet. Or, at the very least, I’d end up as a husband who got knocked around by a wife angry about credit card abuse. The session ended a little after five. Since I had opted out of the evening NFL witch-craft event I decided to try New Orleans style Chinese food. Buying Chinese food in different cities is part of my campaign to search out regional nuances in ingredients and preparations. Amazingly, after checking out that cuisine (there’s a language stretch) in many cities and towns throughout the northeast, mid-atlantic, and southern states I haven’t found any differences. None. There’s not even any difference in the photos on the menu from town to town. Anyway, after dining at the Golden Wall on Canal Street I went to my hotel room, made a phone call home and then did some reading. I even watched the TV for twenty minutes or so until I couldn’t stand the noise. More reading was then followed by a good night’s sleep.

Now have a fine day.