from the recesses of our past

As I was preparing for this entry, I wanted to use other images; some of those created by Katy Jean for the redesigned little chapbook or images from the original chapbook done by Dianne Miller when she published it back in 1999-2000. Alas, all traces of it have momentarily slipped into the recesses of our past.

What I am talking about is Curious Jane Meets the Man, a mostly-accurate retelling of an incident which occurred at Blue Marsh Lake in Berks County, PA on the third day of the first 30-day poetry festival held anywhere during National Poetry Month, Bardfest99, The event was a poetry reading scheduled to be taking place by a stone pyramid which was built (ILLEGALLY) along the banks of Blue Marsh Lake. My audacity was to promote a reading at this illegally build structure and to go ahead with the planned reading without seeking to get permission from the authorities that were in charge of the lake and the lands surrounding it. I didn't feel that I needed permission to have a poetry gathering by the lake. The brown shirts of the state game commission were directed to escort the half dozen or so poets off the land and then followed by car until we had driven off the state land.....which is curious as we all were also citizens of the state, so essentially we were forced off land left in trust.... FOR US.

As fate would have it, one of the citizens who was there for the poetry reading was a local radio personality, whose went on the air a few days later and retold the story, making it a bigger story indeed. A front page article followed, with photo of the pyramid, and the festival and organization cracked into the consciousness of the community. Those dang artists! What are they doin' now?

Well, the festival did in fact make it's way into the record books. But that was hardly the end of the story. Dianne Miller, co-founder of Plan B Press, was also attending the pyramid reading, er, police action, with her daughter who was 8 years old at the time. The daughter was the curious Jane of the story, Curious Jane Meets the Man. It was she would asked what we had done wrong, and the book was Dianne's way of trying to answer that. (the answer is, of course, NOTHING!)

Dianne made a handful of copies of "Jane", using clipart images, creating a basic "kinko's job". And that was it - but not. Fast forward a few years to Katy Jean, the design queen, who recreated the book images for a future reprinting of the book. Fantastic artwork. But, as I stated in the beginning of this entry, not to be found this second.

When this project surfaces, I will alert one and all.

postscript: the rest of the story, and you knew there would be one, is that in late 2000 or early 2001 "the powers that be" bulldozed the pyramid and pushed the stones about a quarter of a mile away from the site. For those of us who once spent time at the pyramid, we sometimes go back stand along the edge of the lake and remember.

anyway, Katy is looking for the proofs. One day the book will be revived.

s - a - m