April was National Poetry Month. Oops. I actually thought that May is National Poetry Month and was looking forward to honoring it by posting this on the first Tuesday in May. But, writing it up, I see that I got the month wrong. Bad me! No cookie!
Anyway, in honor of National Poetry Month (which ended last week) here is a poem by my favorite Alaskan fiddling poet, Ken Waldman.
I first became aware of Ken Waldman years ago when the kids were younger. We used to spend a lot of weekend afternoons at the Long Island Children's Museum (LICM). They had some really good shows there -- they probably still do, but the kids are older now and we haven't been there in a while. Anyway, Ken Waldman was among my favorite performers.
I may have some of details wrong (Ken, if you're reading this, please correct me for the record), but IIRC, Ken found himself working at a radio station in Fairbanks Alaska during the winter. Without much else to do, he learned to play the fiddle. I'm not sure where the poetry came into the mix. At any rate, rather than writinmg and singing songs to accompany his fiddle-playing, Ken recites poems. Actually, he does do some original material -- on of his CDs that I have is a double disc in which one disc is all originals and the other is old favorites.
At his LICM performances, he would hand out papers with poems on them, and encourage the kids to write poetry, and the kids really enjoyed it. So did I, FWIW.
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