Chirstmas @ the U-Club

Last evening, when I stepped up to the podium...

I started off with a poem that described the evening I baked a Bundt cake on PBS, and how I went off script to announce to my granddaughter that I loved her more than anybody else.

Next I tried to solve the worlds problems by announcing that humans would never heal unless....

A FEMALE PRESIDENT WAS PLACED IN THE OVAL OFFICE 

A POPE IS DECLARED FROM DUBLIN CITY

OR, LETTING M.P.R. GREET US EACH MORNING, WITH A POEM FROM ETHNA MCKIERNAN

And if that wasn't enough,   I shared the account Executive Chef Joan Ida passed onto to me about how she went to Italy to research menus, and as she sat in her hotel room alone....a loud noise came from above. when she peeked through the curtains.....the Pope was riding shotgun, in a helicopter...and he waved at her.

These were three really good poems, however........this morning as Klecko put his ear to the ground, all the cool kids were talking about the piece he closed with.....

"TROPHIES OF CONQUEST"

Instead of describing it, let me just show it to you guys......

Knowing how I disliked Garrison Keillor

Without provocation

The pastry chef entered my office smirking

Because she had received 

A secondhand invite to a gala

Taking place at the mans home

That very night

"Steal the bastard's salt and pepper shakers"

I demanded "We'll put them in the break room"

My request offered no purpose

Yet the pastry chef called it genius

Promising to fulfill my bidding

The following morning

During a postmortem of the party

The pastry chef rolled her eyes

While explaining how his cookbooks were shit

As she handed me a package

With contents I'm not at liberty to discuss

I get it. 

People love it when you target a sacred cow, but I guess in my opinion......the target pales in comparison to the possible caper that may (or may not) have conspired between two low profile colleagues.

But anyway....the University Club was spectacular, decked out with Christmas lights, a million poinsettia plants and a fresh blanket of snow.

The only thing that could have improved our venue is if it came equipped with a seven pound Baby-Jesus.

As you look down, you will see Hertzel's take on the evening, however.....she really is modest in sparing you insight on her set, and how she "CRUSHED" her quilt story that may have put a tear or two into the eyes of even the most macho literary patrons.

The evenings roster was simply one literary monster after another. I must confess.....even Klecko was more nervous than he would care to admit.

But as Laurie sends props out to the boys in her account, I'd like to cast my vote of approval to the women. Although all of them were superb, I kinda felt Hertzel and Heid Erdrich were captivating. Maybe if some of the dudes would have talked less.....they might have talked longer.

I wouldn't have minded a bit.

Merry Christmas L.A.B. Rats - 

I love most of you

 

Laurie Hertzel is senior editor for books at the Star Tribune, where she has worked since 1996. She is the author of "News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist," winner of a Minnesota Book Award.

Props, jokes and poetry

Posted by: Laurie Hertzel under Author events, Local authors, Poetry, Readings Updated: December 18, 2013 - 10:21 AM

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Danny Klecko reads at the University Club.

The women weren't exactly sedate, but they read from printed scripts--poetry, book excerpts, essays--and they mostly kept to the time limit. Within those constraints, though, there was much room for laughter and poignancy, as Heid Erdrich read poems that she had "sneaked into" her new cookbook, "Original Local," and Mary Lou Judd Carpenter read from a memoir she has written about her parents, "Miriam's Words: The Personal Price of a Public Life." (Her father was congressman Walter Judd, and the memoir draws heavily on the letters of his wife, Miriam.) Eleanor Leonard read an essay about lighting the candles on a tree and singing "Silent Night."
But the men! Whoa! Less reading than performance art, spoken word, with props.
Last night's Readings for Writers (holiday edition), coordinated and emceed, as usual, by St. Paul Poet Laureate Carol Connolly, was unexpectedly raucous and, at times, side-splittingly funny. Not what you might expect for a literary evening at the sedate and dignified University Club.

Mike Finley pulls poems out of a sock

Poet Mike Finley, blue-eyed and cherubic, pulled a tinsel-bedecked hat out of a bag, placed it solemnly on his head, then pulled out a big gold Christmas stocking and began fishing around inside of it, drawing out slips of paper at random and reading them. Not poems, exactly, but more than jokes, they first startled, then amused the audience. (The first one: "Why / is that frisbee / getting bigger? / and then it hits me....")
Poet and memoirist Ted King pulled on a Santa hat, claimed that Ted King couldn't make it and had sent Santa in his place, and then began spinning fantastic stories, seemingly off the top of his head, about the original Santa giveaway (which involved theft).
Baker-poet Danny Klecko never opened his prop bag, just pounded it on the podium dramatically as he read a poem about urging one of his pastry chefs to steal Garrison Keillor's salt and pepper shakers. Was that what was in the bag? The last line of the poem tells us that the contents "I'm not at liberty to discuss."
At 9 p.m., just as Tim Nolan, the last poet of the evening, approached the podium, a dozen or so people screamed, "Snow emergency!" and fled to move their cars. Nolan looked wryly at Connolly and said, "You mention my name and people head for the door."
He carried only a sheaf of paper with him, but it turned out that he, too, had props: As he read his final poem, "Shoes," he removed his shoes and placed them on the podium in front of him. He made it almost all the way through the poem before stopping, sniffing the air, and saying, "Oooh, my shoes stink." And then, "That's not part of the poem."
The annual event is free but passes the hat for Public Art St. Paul.

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