Oklahoma!

I had a great time reading and visiting w/folks in Oklahoma last week. I read at Oklahoma City University on Wednesday eve. (Day of the Dead - a propos for Things Come On) and at Univ. of Tulsa on Thursday. Here is an account of the latter reading by my co-reader, Sheila Black, who read some pretty swell poems of her own - some inspired by things said by her son, who suffers from schizophrenia.

The students at Tulsa were great, too - understood Things Come On better than I do, as I've told several folks since. Great close readers. My host, Grant Jenkins, gave me a wonderful tour of Tulsa, including Ron Padgett's childhood home, the (former) Greenwood neighborhood (where an entire community was massacred), the art-deco disneyland of the Boston St. Methodist Church, and the kitch paradise of Oral Roberts.