LITERARY FRIDAY
Today was the day that the Robert E. Howard fans came to Cross Plains to hold their annual get together. My assignment at the Library was to let the others go to lunch starting at 11. I did that until 1 when I attended on of the panels looking at Howard's poetry. The three experts on poetry were amazed that Howard could write more than 800 poems while he was writing 4 million words all on a manual typewriter. Terms like genius and prodigy were thrown around. The last question from the audience asked if there was any criticism of his poetry and the response was that the ones that have been collected were often first drafts that were never polished.
I went home and took a nap. The heat takes it out of me although I am in air-conditioned comfort most of the time. I returned to the dinner meeting that had well over 100 from France, Canada, 13 other states and out-of-town Texans. Arlene Stephenson greeted us with a poetic welcome that was quite good. Debbie Gosnell thanked everyone for coming to CP and our barber mayor, Ray Purvis welcomed everyone and blessed the meal. Catered by Humphrey Pete's from Brownwood it was salad, chicken fried steak, green beans, mashed potatoes with a lot of white gravy. Rusty Burke from Washington, D.C. was the master of ceremonies and remembered Joan McCowen and Lou along with one of their members who died since the last meeting. He presented their scholarship to Emily Harris who read her winning paper that gave the history of the building that was built as an ice house. It was where they staged local boxing matches that Howard participated in. The building was later used by Lawrence Farm and Ranch until the storm that broke Lou's mother's hip came through and took the roof off. It is now a taxidermist building.
The dinner speaker was Larry D. Thomas, Poet Laureate of Texas, whose talk was entitled ROBERT E. HOWARD: A POET OF PLACE, THE 'PLACE' OF TEXAS. He read some of Howard's poems that captured the hard times of trying to make a living on a farm in West Texas. The decorations for the tables had wooden cutouts of Texas with excerpts from Howard's poems. The programs had a copy of the wall decorations again with Howard's poems on them. They used the theme FROM THE FIRST with one of Howard's first poems TO THE LAST with one taken from a letter just before he committed suicide.
Today I worked the lunch shift again but came home to nap and am going to the Sunset BBQ that was first celebrated at Halsell Hill in 1986.
Today was the day that the Robert E. Howard fans came to Cross Plains to hold their annual get together. My assignment at the Library was to let the others go to lunch starting at 11. I did that until 1 when I attended on of the panels looking at Howard's poetry. The three experts on poetry were amazed that Howard could write more than 800 poems while he was writing 4 million words all on a manual typewriter. Terms like genius and prodigy were thrown around. The last question from the audience asked if there was any criticism of his poetry and the response was that the ones that have been collected were often first drafts that were never polished.
I went home and took a nap. The heat takes it out of me although I am in air-conditioned comfort most of the time. I returned to the dinner meeting that had well over 100 from France, Canada, 13 other states and out-of-town Texans. Arlene Stephenson greeted us with a poetic welcome that was quite good. Debbie Gosnell thanked everyone for coming to CP and our barber mayor, Ray Purvis welcomed everyone and blessed the meal. Catered by Humphrey Pete's from Brownwood it was salad, chicken fried steak, green beans, mashed potatoes with a lot of white gravy. Rusty Burke from Washington, D.C. was the master of ceremonies and remembered Joan McCowen and Lou along with one of their members who died since the last meeting. He presented their scholarship to Emily Harris who read her winning paper that gave the history of the building that was built as an ice house. It was where they staged local boxing matches that Howard participated in. The building was later used by Lawrence Farm and Ranch until the storm that broke Lou's mother's hip came through and took the roof off. It is now a taxidermist building.
The dinner speaker was Larry D. Thomas, Poet Laureate of Texas, whose talk was entitled ROBERT E. HOWARD: A POET OF PLACE, THE 'PLACE' OF TEXAS. He read some of Howard's poems that captured the hard times of trying to make a living on a farm in West Texas. The decorations for the tables had wooden cutouts of Texas with excerpts from Howard's poems. The programs had a copy of the wall decorations again with Howard's poems on them. They used the theme FROM THE FIRST with one of Howard's first poems TO THE LAST with one taken from a letter just before he committed suicide.
Today I worked the lunch shift again but came home to nap and am going to the Sunset BBQ that was first celebrated at Halsell Hill in 1986.
posted by Dr. Rodenberger at 4:42 PM
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