Finding the muse

I am not the river muse, but the river muse is in me spreading like spring pollen, bringing forth music and art and literature from these parts in disproportionate ratio to the population.

If you’re not aware of it, call for help, because your head is likely underground, or under water.

This weekend, you can catch the latest innovations in digital film making at DIGit in Narrowsburg, or see a trio of one-act plays at the Rivoli Theater in South Fallsburg. Or get in on some fine performance poetry, this Thursday night at the Tusten library’s Narrowsburg branch.

A few years ago, I spent a spring afternoon at the Delaware Valley Arts Alliance, listening to a group of local poets reading from their latest published work. A poet myself at one time, I had lost my muse among the many distractions of a busy life.

These poets brought me back. Once again, I felt the joy of verse flowing from my consciousness, the wonder of a language that could plumb the depths of my experience and translate it into art.

But it wasn’t just my own reawakening that was thrilling for me. It was being among so many other fine writers. Most of us share the same library branch and shop at the same supermarket. Is it something in the water?

Ah, yes, the water. That throbbing snake of a river, at times laying low, at other times rising up and threatening to strike. Unpredictable, unfathomable, endless.

Not long after that reading at the DVAA, I was invited to join the Upper Delaware Writers Collective. Soon, our ranks grew too numerous to fit around the generous oak table in Mary Greene’s cozy house, high on a hill in Tusten. We split into two sessions.

Although few of us are professional writers, none are dilettantes. There are no Hallmark greetings or painful iambic pentameters about kittens to suffer through at our monthly sessions. There are serious writers among us, some quite young, others in their seventies, mostly women, with two men who give the collective some gender balance.

Not one of us makes a living writing. But for most of us, writing is living.

There is a young mother from Hancock, as unprepossessing as they come in appearance, who can get to the heart of family life in a terse verse about a snail.

Another, a retired musician from the city, has found a second calling in performance storytelling. Before quitting the pit at New York City Opera, he had not written more than a love letter. Now, he’s a featured poet at readings in NYC and locally.

Another woman is a sales executive who finds time to craft verse in hotel lounges, while traveling for business.

We are as various and unassuming as the shoppers in line at Peck’s. It is a constant reminder, to me, not to assume anything about my neighbors.

All of this leads me to ask, is the muse in you?

Note to readers: The Upper Delaware Writers Collective newest chapbook, “Wheel,” is available at local shops and at Signature Gifts, the gift shop at the Delaware Valley Arts Center in Narrowsburg. Other local groups include The Alchemy Club and the Writers Circle. There is a monthly poetry open mic at The Himalayan Institute in Honesdale, PA.

April is National Poetry Month.