Don't Forget!

At 7 p.m. Tues. Jan. 19, Erik Campbell and I will read poetry at Mr. Toad, 1002 Howard St. in Omaha's Old Market.

Our readings are one of the monthly extravaganzas of language organized by poet Michael Skau. He calls them Imaginary Gardens—with real toads in them, if we're to believe Marianne Moore. Otherwise, we must settle for the venerable Mr. Toad.

"In the jungle you have only bound horizons," writes Erik Campbell. He should know. He lived in Thailand and Indonesia, and wrote about that.

Campbell calls himself "an idea writer." He rarely uses, for example, color or conscious imagery. Instead, he stalks ideas that make "interesting and consequential conversation."

I plan to read a variety of poems, including some from my newest book, just published Jan. 12.  It's called JackJack & JuneBug: A Love Song in Poems and Posts by Marilyn June Coffey & Jack Loscutoff, my astute partner. When Jack and I were alive and hot for each other, we wrote some of these bawdy poems. I wrote the posts before and after Jack died.

So come hear Erik's "consequential conversations" and some of my new poems, often steamy.