My new Chapbook, "On God's Doorstep" a season of Saturday mornings at the Madonna Della Strada Chapel Terrace, Loyola University Lakeshore Campus is now available for sale at: http://www.literaryangels.com/Danstafford.htm This is a collection of poetry and photography about a very beautiful place, and not the religious work the title may imply. A postcard from a place of beauty and serenity, so to speak. It took a year to write the poetry, and nearly another year and a half to get the photography and publishing work ready for print. All photography is unenhanced, and was taken with a very inexpensive toy 35mm film camera, and yet turned out stunningly beautiful. Here's a peek at the cover photo - ther appears to be an angel praying in the sunlight, and this is exactly how the unedited 35mm photo turned out, nothing was touched up or added:

Inch By Inch:

In battling the brass,
There is no fast and furious,
Only incremental improvement,
A microfraction every day,
Slowly getting better,
Like a snail catching on,
Each note dragged out by it's squeaking hairs,
Yet the however is simple and stark,
I'm still moving up hill,
And if it takes me years,
I will play yet someday,
I will win the sweet battle,
Of buttered brass and reed.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 01/10/2004

Author's Comments:
I'm steadfastly struggling to improve my saxophone playing just a touch every day.

Grey Sky And Angel Feathers:

I fell into reverie,
Lost in clouds and sun departing,
It was flurries on water frozen into a sheet,
Sparkling white dust like a diamond circle,
Turning a plain pond into something mystical,
I won't cry over Winter as I hold her dear,
So much in this world needs these days of rest,
How man's clumsy hands are hurting the Ice Queen,
How careless and callous it can be,
I wonder for a world devoid of snow,
All the creatures that will die away,
All the cities that will be awash or sunken,
All the changes and hardship this might bring,
I dance at every flake like a new-christened child,
I feel joy in cold drops upon my tongue,
I see my breath in a cloud and consider it righteous,
I would be the Druid standing at the Stones of Winter,
Looking between the snow covered fir trees,
Sighting down the East and seeing sunlight not yet in,
If we truly knew what was coming,
We'd be frightened out of mind,
But today the snow was falling,
Like God's whiskers and angel dusted feathers,
And when the night is muffled with clouds,
And the pretty flakes dance in the beams of streetlights,
I hear sleigh bells ringing and see warm fires and hands holding,
Children with rosy cheeks and snow-filled pant cuffs,
Ice skates and sleds and snowmen,
And I could care less if I drive slower,
It's easier on Winter anyway,
And when I lose the child inside me,
That's when living will be a separate issue from breathing,
But right now I'm going out into the pretty snow,
And let the twain joyously collide.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 01/10/2004

Author's Comments:
Snowy weather is a treasure. It says the world is not yet truly unbalanced, just teetering. It says be child-like and have faith. Global Warming is a nightmare and I owe a very great debt to Winter and all it has brought into my life. There are so many reasons to rejoice in that the Winter is come to bring the world to order for the mad rush of Spring.

A Cigar With My Ghosts:

I won't play favorites I loved those gone,
Every one was something special in my life,
Still is 'cause I hear their voices,
Feel the love they left in this place,
On some sunny days I sit and slow time smoke,
The scent reminds me and I see them there,
One in pony tails drumming tennis on the floor 'n gum poppin',
One sitting back with a newspaper no longer toiling over the stove,
Another next to me with a glowing cherry in a cloud,
And as the music plays back behind me,
The wind whispers by like yesterday did,
I feel the chill of all they are,
And smile because in my heart,
I'm sharing something with these spirits that still move me,
In the sights and sounds behind my eyes it's all good,
I remember and I dream and I play fast forward or rewind,
Just one of the special scenes that graces my mind,
I could listen to that part of my soul for hours,
Some times I do,
But I guess it's a gift to me,
This little happy fantasy,
That let's me hold on to the best of you.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 01/10/2004

Author's Comment:
I wish sometimes in life I'd been able to share a cigar chair day with my Grandfather, but I'd bet Mom 'n my Grandmother would've been there too.

Limestone Under Sunset Siege:

I walked the path today,
Saw the crumbling limestone,
Foundations a shadow of when,
Simpler has gone or so we'd say,
Blacktop paved prairie paths,
Between tame milkweed ponds,
Canada geese sail a spring fed gravel pit,
And the only signs of amber waves,
Are crumbling limestone squares,
Planters for shrubs and trees,
Reminders of where children dreamt,
And people lived close to the land.

The sunset swore soft pastels,
It was late December and warm,
Barely ice on the water,
No speck of snow to see,
Just Canada geese and crumbling limestone,
In almost hidden shrub covered squares,
Buried under Prairie grasses seemingly freed,
I wonder how long the herons will be gone,
In this only place they still make little herons.

The ghosts are trembling amidst the crumbling limestone,
Under the barely chill sunset rays,
Looking at the sunfire on water,
Tied to disappearing haunts,
Even Winter holds their trembling ethereal hands,
Walking with them into faded memory,
Like the sun at the end of a beautiful day.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 12/27/2003

Author's Comments:
It all seemed to come together, the fading sun, the crumbling ruins you barely knew were there, the lateness of Winter. The world changes and it only seems slow.

Last Breath:

The Oil Demons breathed their last breath,
It was thunderous rejoicing,
Children need not die in the sands,
In the streets or in the far countryside,
Winter could someday come back home to stay,
Poison could leave the land and lakes and seas,
In the silence of golden sunlight,
In the peace wrought of whirling white blades,
In the bountiful cascade of rolling waters,
In the field of golden harvests,
The treasures of gold and heart,
Home again to stay, to stay,
And once the people finally believed,
That was when the monsters were no longer needed,
And we could all walk closer to what God gave us,
Even though it took so much horror and filth to understand,
Cleanliness IS next to Godliness,
Just expand the concept,
Because the entire world is your home.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 12/24/2003

Author's Comments:
My biggest Christmas wish is that people will truly see what oil is doing
to us and add their voices to the clamor for a clean life and world. It's
worth it!

"In the six kinds of fantasy I inhabit, in the lands where my mind must go,
I will picture resolution's face in a blur, and yet it shall come to be what I see."

Belief is a powerful thing. Many practice this mejik without understanding it in the least. So many have been told of the doom of fire for so long that their beliefs demand it to appear - and so it does. Yet in the understanding that beliefs can change is where the answer lies. There is a solution to the rising heat of the *Monotnussverse*, and it will be found by those who believe it will be found.

When China Comes Calling:

The dust bowls that are a quarter the size of the USA,
Blow hard on the minds of the prescient,
The rise of the Yangtze River screams the death knell of temples,
As the peasants climb away from home,
The grain stocks are almost gone and crops are failing,
Oceans rise and push inland slowly,
Squeezed between hungry blowing Earth and drowning swamps,
The deserts, oceans, and river are coming,
But who's going to feed that nearly a billion,
When China comes calling?

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 12/18/2003

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update31.htm

By: Daniel A. Stafford
Author's Comments

The Earth Policy Institute's analysts believe that China's grain storage will be completely depleted by 2004 - and that the huge country will for the first time in history turn to grain exporters such as the USA for food imports - In such quantities that US citizens will be competing with Chinese import companies for food. At the same time, crop yields worldwide are declining due to the advance of global warming. See the report at the link at the end of the poem.

THe structure was somewhat unusual. It was entirelty crafted of some yellow metal. I couldn't for the life of me tell where the seams or joints were, it looked like it was all one piece.

Also, the ice was on the verge of turning to slush, so I had to stop my descent and set up a shield bubble spell. The shield bubble would stop any physical matter from getting through by diverting anything that touched it into a random mejiverse on the entry side and returning it to it's original mejiverse on the exact opposite side of the bubble. This could present problems for living beings, considering that their trip through the random mejiverse could take them through either a mejiverse with hostile phylaws that didn't allow life to exist, otr through an environment that was hard on living tissues, such as rock or hard vacuum. For this reason, the shield bubble spell also had a component that caused a blood red glow on the outer edge of the shield. This didn't serve as an effective warning to every life form, but at least 85% of known life forms are carbon based, and most of those in oxygen rich environments and using an iron-based liquid oxygen carrier for blood. Perhaps it's a superversal, but for some reason nearly all creatures stop when they see red. There could possibly be a psychic component to itas well. That would also qualify as superversal, but mejikal research was still in progress on the question and had been for a few millennia without a concrete answer.

Once the shield bubble was glowing, I advanced through the remaining ice between the yellow metal structure and myself until I was within three meters or so. At that point, I conjured a rubber ball out of the superverse and hit it with a slight impetus spell. The ball shot through the ice and hit the side of the structure. No reaction. I even set up a sensate spell and listened in for vibrations on the physical plane of the deep rumbling sort that usually proclaim danger in adventure stories. Nothing. It appeared that at least this portion of the structure was deserted. Perhaps it was too cold for watery life forms at this level. At any rate, I started up an Oxyjen spell to keep the air in the shield bubble within my phylaw tolerances for gas composition and temperature, and headed downward looking for an entry point.

I was flying quietly around a planet in the Snowbelt - basically just a little ice ball that you couldn't see through. It appeared to be wobbling in it's orbit, but I wasn't quite sure. I took a six sided divination spell out and popped the mejik on it. Sure enough, the little tyke was wobbly.

Now, in this particular mejiverse, planets do not get wobbly, especially ice ball ones, unless they have some sort of life force field around them. You see, the laws of physics in various mejiverses vary, so I had to check the rule star in this one. (A rule star is basically an old black hole with three white dwarfs circling it's LaGrange points.) I checked the distances and orbital speed of the marker stars orbiting the rule star and got a rough read on the set of phy-law in this mejiverse. It was relatively close to my home mejiverse, but not identical. Of particular note was a rune marker left on the log asteroid in L-5. It noted specifically that life could be detected in this mejiverse by orbital wobble of planetary bodies due to a fairly strong interaction between gravity waves and life force emanations in this mejiverse.

Another interesting note was that the upper speed limit for physical travel in this mejiverse was four times the speed of light, provided the travel was including living entities. It seems that the life force in this universe also had a tendency to weaken inertia by twenty five percent or so once the life forms got clear of deep gravity wells such as planets, etc.

Now, it was already known that semi-intelligent humanoid creatures were evolving on the second rock from the parent star in this particular little planetary system. The parent star was of interest, as well. It had a high content of violet in it's light spectrum, giving everything a distinctly lavender tint, and looking similar to a blacklight bulb from any appreciable distance. An interesting side effect was the luminescence of anything white in the vincinity of this star. Hence the little ice ball not only was wobbly, but the ice had a slight chalk content to it, making it glow like some kind of pagan tree ornament.

I took stock of my current spell catalogue and found what I was looking for. It was a McKintosh Ice Borer spell. With it, I could travel through ice as if it were air, because my body and belongings would vibrate at a specific frequency that caused my atoms to miss the atoms of ice. I did what any third year novice mejishun would do, and verified it by landing on the surface and ice boring a marble through an ice chip on the surface after first using an Emerald Stare And Compare spell on the marble. (The Emerald version is compatible with 99.99999999999999999 percent of mejiverse phylaws.) The marble checked out perfectly after being bored. It's a good thing to be careful not to lose your marbles, you never know what they might be useful for.

On that note, I used the McKintosh to get bored. I floated in at about twenty knots for starters, and sure enough I came upon a layer of liquid water at a depth of fourty five fathoms. At that point I pulled out a Nucleustide Submarinating Particle accelerator spell and began diving in earnest. I was careful to use a Visifilter spell to utilize the ultraviolet penetration in order to see. That allowed me to blend into the natural setting here on Iceball. (I like the name, kind of catchy.)

I neared a hundred sevent fathoms and suddenly a clearly artificial structure loomed out of the darkness. I stopped the Nucleustide and pulled out a majorscrying spell to investigate.

Heaven's Bells:

If our picture is our world,
Does the sum of our minds' eyes weigh on the scales of fate,
Does the sound of tears and wailing ring true in your heart,
Or is it the sound of laughter,
Maybe still the sound of the small sigh you can not hold in,
When one you love reaches your arms?

Can you see whales and hear their song,
Trying to understand what is said in the eons,
Beneath rolling waves of grey white blue,
Will you remember the connection,
That souls of different shapes must share,
When the Bells of Heaven ring,
Is it above the sky or beneath the sea?

When angels stand before you,
Will you picture cold lonely places,
The thousand thousand sad poems that seem to reach you,
Or the one kind word that seems so small and foolish,
Until you look it in the eye and it calls your name,
What responsibility do you bear,
For the things your imagination chooses to see?

When you are the Albatross floating in the sky of dreams,
Do you float over beaches filled with visions of Normandy,
Or lovers lost between sand and blue and palm fronds,
Cold ice at the top of the world,
Or silent dead boiling seas.

Skies of black or blue,
Warm hand or cold point of spear,
Shackles or joyous choices,
Raucous creatures or barren sands,
Red of Mars and Venus,
Or Earth so blue and green,
Guard your visions well.

They are the key to Heaven's Bells.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/30/2003

Author's Comments:
How we collectively see the world has great weight
upon how the world is in our lives. Think upon that deeply.[/b]
_________________
Words are the mind's bridge - it's connection to the Universe. Love is the heart's bridge - it's connection to all other souls. Loving words can work miracles.

Legend of the Crystal Tree:

They say it existed bfore the time of men,
Some pre-dawn era when magic was the only cognition,
Before reason crossed the threshold of belief,
And before wonder could fall to "sense".

It was a thing of unimaginable beauty,
And the creatures that saw it lived with shining eyes,
All the days they were numbered in the Weave,
The Glow never left their eyes...

Druids once danced under it's light,
On the night of Winter Solstice,
When days were short and they sought warmth,
Fires that burn from the heart out are still hard to find.

The primitive barrows begged the Stars and Gods for food,
Seeking any power to help them survive,
Their small numbers braved the dark North in the night,
And only by it's light could they grow.

Kristallklarbaum - The crystal-clear tree,
Made of magic and light and pure water,
Clear as carved ice and gloriously alive,
Hidden deep down in the last baugrundhaus of the Anchients.

Lovers would disappear into the snow,
Winds howling like mad spirits desperately alone,
Only to return with glowing eyes and bear the Kinderstark,
Children of ferocious strength and heart and ability.

They would sing a soft melodic tinkling song in their dreams,
And speak in whispers of a glowing tree of light,
Deep in a sheltered cave surrounded by mighty stones,
Through which ran a frigid clear mountain stream.

They would say how the wind sang through it's branches,
Ringing like Yule bells in the night to guide them to shelter,
And whisper of the soft warmth under it's branches,
And the fierce desire that overtook them uncontrollably.

Such couples always married and never separated,
Their love lasting a lifetime and seeming chosen by forces beyond men,
Their children performing heroic deeds and near miracles,
And this is how those few survived and grew strong - even mighty.

If you wander in the far North hand in hand,
If you hear the winds howling like mad spirits amidst blinding snow,
And you suddenly hear the song of Kristallklarbaum on the wind,
Playing to the Universe on Winter Solstice eve...

...may you come home with stars in your eyes.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/27/2003

Author's Comments:
Happy holidays - with love.

The Flying Mejishuns are really whooping up a big shew!

HEAVY-LIFTING VERSION OF DELTA 4 TO TAKE TEST FLIGHT
----------------------------------------------------
In a Cape Canaveral hangar, a rocket of monstrous proportions and power is
taking shape. It will be unveiled next month, rolling to the launch pad to
prepare for a demonstration flight that will test its knack for lofting
hefty cargos into orbit and potentially one day ferrying humans to the
space station.

http://spaceflightnow.com/news/n0311/19delta4heavy/

It's about time I got back to the castle! Too much mejikal buffetting around the Hallooween this year. The eklipz of the moon and all that bloody red in the sky, what wild petrterbations and gyrations and suchlike!

At any rate, the dragon's snoozing in the moat, and life is good. I've got my saxophone all repaired up by the Brass 'n Leather gnomes, and it spouts offf beautifully. Take a look-see:

Simple Brass:

The feel of it smooth in my hands,
The taste of reed in my mouth,
Some piece of life I abandoned far too long,
Battered and old,
Touches of green on gold I'll spend days,
Stressing to find the natural flow,
Remembering infancy and desperation to speak,
It's right as rain and hard as hell,
Wavering cracking squeaking,
Like a teenager trying to sing,
But none of that matters,
Not if I can strike a true note at will,
Someday I'll have different words,
The kind that don't push pictures,
But will break your heart and leave you loving it,
Simple brass but it gleams in spots,
One more bit of polish,
In every hard-earned breath.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 10/16/2003



Author's Comments:
A touch on picking back up a saxophone after 29 years. *Grin* The sax in the pic is mine - webcam shot. I decided to call it Bello - Italian for handsome and a good play on what that word would mean if it were spelled differently (add a "w") and in English. *LOL* It also takes a bit of "brass" to play it in front of others...

What Is The Wind?

The wind is jubilant,
Like flags whipping furiously,
Like a saxophone played so sweet,
It blows your heart out your back,
Just like Junior Walker and the all stars,
Super blue sound howling in the night,
Fountain spray bent at an angle,
As you lean into it feeling elemental,
Moved and barely anchored to the Earth,
Part of the chill blowing night,
Like maybe you really could fly any second,
But that's not all the wind is,
The wind is hard to see,
It touches everything with an invisible hand,
Breath of God or wanton gift of the Universe,
It chased half of Illinois down the street last night,
Blew the siding off my house,
Too bad I couldn't have caught it,
But I can't hold lightning either.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/14/2003

Author's Comments:
We had winds from 30 - 50 knots yesterday -
for about 12 hours. Man, you should have seen the flags
flyin!

Arista Decca:

She was born into a molten pot of brass,
Stainless steel hair falling in tune like silvery wires,
Blue diode irises in her shining golden face,
A voice like an angel from a jukebox,
Always on pitch,
Sleek brass breasts and stainless blouse,
From the silvered crease of her brass britches,
Down to the chromed wing tip high heels,
She was a metallic siren,
Born to inspire dreams she was innocent of,
Creation of a modern-day Geppetto with a jazz man's soul,
She would take flight to the stage,
A vacuum tube glowing through thin brass,
Right there where every gal has a heart,
You'd see it glow when someone she loved lit her up,
Man oh man could she sing,
Sweet and everything like the best piano rolled sax you ever had,
But all she wanted for Christmas was to be loved,
Ever since they fired her up she'd been used,
Some piece of conversation some thought,
Or play my request Baby,
But look out she wasn't taking any fingerprints,
In rude places hard to polish,
And if you knew her long you could tell,
Her copper-gold alloy lips had heating elements built in,
But her Blues Angel flew off in a blush,
After Daddy Geppetto welded her up,
A stainless gilded Iron Man,
And she got to flip his switch,
On her twenty fifth Christmas morning,
And if you never saw sparks fly,
You should have seen that tube glowing in her chest,
'Cause man it was like a blast furnace gone nova,
Dang near made Iron Man melt,
When she sang "Merry Christmas, Baby" -
With a five tenor sax accompaniment,
And two harmonicas on wings.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 11/14/2003

Author's Comments:
Inspired by the famous Elvis gold lame' suit - and an
imagined sighting of a gold lame' boot at the mall.

They Whispered Cold Stone:

I saw the eyes darling,
They were bright and full and gibbous,
The leaves danced 'round my ankles,
Cold and restless to go to forever.

Jackfrost past the creaking gates,
One hung rusted and askew,
It was twilight dreading the equinox,
And they whispered cold stone.

Her name was there,
I saw it twixt these rheumy old tears,
The flowers of every year I spent in my cups,
Dead heaps of nothing once beautiful.

Spring is such a short time,
Yet it felt like endless,
You get to know in time,
Even memory isn't that.

Whisper cold stone when the flowers turn,
When ashen and stars rule what was blue,
Soon enough the snows come to bury,
And only the whispers of stone still stand.

Even stone knows Spring and Winter.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C)10/13/2003

Author's Comments:
Sorry for the maudlin, it's just that I'm a child of Summer,
and I hear the leaves ticking.

Fingers of the Witch:

Isn't it strange,
Once a year,
The morrors all crack,
A green fog comes along,
A great bright glowing amber orange moon,
The light turns pale and ghostly,
All the beauty sinks in,
All the ghastly creeps out,
Realease the inner demons,
Rattle bones and commune with the dead,
Steel hard red fingernails,
Exclaim the gnarled green fingers of the Witch,
The black kettle grumbles burbling on the hook,
Swung hard over the fire,
In the purple burning center,
Of the cold white bricks,
Up the chimney with soot and cinders streaming trails,
Her broom screams cackling into the night,
Black familiar screaming like a woman,
Claws sunk to the utmost in ancient wood,
A trail of smoke straight up the sky spiraled,
As she spells ballistic without letters,
Parting a cloud of vampire bats,
Misted fog drifting with purpose,
Glowing-eyed sheets and such like twirling,
A cackling vile gesture,
Flung in the face of Luna,
She knows the time draws nigh,
Every gnarly gourd and gristly bone,
Floating in her cauldron,
Screaming spirits dance in the pentacle,
Soon the black candle will burn red and green flames,
Leaves are fire on the trees,
Children shuddering cowered abed,
No one sees the flying pain,
As the tears of missing forever,
What has died another season,
Wiped instantly away to vanish,
Upon the one trembling tip,
Of the only ungnarled spot left,
Upon the fingers of the witch.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 10/13/2003 in the hour past midnight.

Author's Comments:
The season of the new is passed again,
The season of the harvest,
Of reaping and death before rebirth,
Is at the heart of every witch this time of year.
She remembers her time of Spring and Summer.

The Family Muse:

It's an interesting thing,
When you click "search".

Never knowing what you'll find,
Gifts throughout space and time,
Mysteries and revelations.

The greatest of them,
William the Giant,
He lived with her close day by day,
She leaned on his shoulder with tender golden whispers.

Kim the Giant's Heir,
Walking around his father's incredible ghost,
She brushes kisses on his ear in timely fashion,
And Princess Kit dances sweet moving the world,
Listening to Daddy's Love in timeless abandon and rhythm's power.

The Giant's brood are nuclear,
And the rest of us in the family quiet old TNT,
Lady Judith wanders with her hand in hand,
As they laugh a verse and lay down polished words,
And Dave Sinclair with our family in the midst gets some time,
Whiling away poor dear Norma catches whispers while doing time.

Paul Michael dances with her a jig or two,
Some day I'll see the sweet nothings she left him,
And Patrick P. remembers Lady Di under the gift of whispers,
Immortalizing the beautiful lost candle light in the hurricane,
And there she she danced a well deserved turn,
Yet Clay lies at her feet hearing bits in his dreams,
And David recorded WWII under the force of her gently driven breath.

Jorge is the Crossword Prince twisting out answers under her wing,
And Claire Ann has a subtle spirit of youth which colors her gift,
While Mr. Chris has a turn coming for a whisper soon we'll read,
James speaks to our souls and the twisted path we must walk straight,
As we never forget Simon be it fall upon the lake,
While Jana records the readings yet I bet she'll have her whisper day,
And Donna dash Skar translates January Rainbows and other rare golden delights,
And Barbara lends us pictures of the visions with the poetic way she illustrates.

Georgia Lynn brought us joy and sorrow,
Poor dear couldn't live even with the words,
But she took the time to speak with us before her leaving day,
And so the clan distant and scattered though we be,
She travels light at the speed of light,
A touch here and whisper there,
Busy busy busy but ever a tenacious delight,
The family muse lives on touching the quiet gentle hearts,
All these Staffords in literature and poetry.

What of me did you say,
I think she comes to me missing William,
Because she is often but I've yet to reach Fusion,
She is loving Earth and Sky and heart and cloud,
She led me to start watching over the family,
"Daniel A. please whisper prayers for them upon electric clouds."
My ear is always open to her,
Beautiful Lady Inspiration,
Dancing in papyrus piles and loads of feather quills,
Our dear sweet family Muse.

AquarianM

By: Daniel A. Stafford
(C) 09/26/2003

Author's Comments:
Thank you to Google.com, for what they had to say about "Poetry Stafford."

!!ANNOUNCEMENT!!


I need 60 poets to read at Harvest Fest:



We need 30 poets each day over two days to read for six minutes each.

This will be a large outdoor family oriented function, part of Plainfield's annual Harvest Festival,

on Saturday September 20th 2003 & Sunday September 21st 2003.

Please, keep in mind there will be children and families in attendance when choosing material for this reading,

and choose appropriately. Please have at least one poem on fall or the harvest.



This event is entitled the “Gourmet Junction Harvest of Words” and is being sponsored by and hosted at Gourmet Junction,

(www.gourmetjunction.com) at 505 West Lockport Street, Plainfield, IL.



The readings will take place under a tent on the street in front of Gourmet Junction.

Local high school and college poets will be reading between 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm,

and adult poets between 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm each day.

There will be a single table available for chapbook displays for shared use by all poets.

If fully booked, this event will feauture a total of sixty poets, thirty adult and thirty young poets over two days.



Interested poets please contact:



Daniel A. Stafford

AquarianM@whizzyrds.com

815-483-8878



Please provide your name, city or neighborhood, phone number, e-mail if available,

and the best times to reach you, and age group, school or adult.



This event could well kick off monthly readings in Plainfield, so we need to really show ‘em what we can do!



This event will be free to the public.



I’ll be taking names until 4pm Tuesday, September 9th or all 60 slots are booked, whichever comes first.