19th Annual Scissortail Creative Writing Festival - Thursday Morning, April 4

I was last here at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma in 2022 & was very glad to be back. I was first here in 2011, returning every other year until 2019, then back in 2022. Glad to be back for the poets I’ve met before & for the new poets to meet now.

Scissortail is two & a half days of often over-lapping readings by writers in poetry & prose. Each day started with a reading in Estep Auditorium in the ECU Campus Center, followed by readings in 2 to 3 locations during the afternoon, followed by a break for dinner, then a reading & book-signing by a featured reader back at Estep Auditorium. Meanwhile throughout the festival is a string of tables with books for sale by the readers, the tables staffed by volunteers from ECU.

The beloved ringmaster of this writing extravaganza is Ken Hada, Professor in the Department of English & Languages at ECU, whose welcoming comments & introduction this morning were done in a torn shirt, which to me was a signal of success & a call to buy a lottery ticket (i.e., the day has got to get better).

Estep Auditorium

In his comments Ken noted that the festival this year had 19 new authors reading, & this first segment started off with young writer Ky George, a graduate of the Red Earth MFA program at Oklahoma City University. Their poems invoked a female coyote (“Coyote Calls”), “Madonna Whore” (words she will teach her daughter), social justice eco-poems, & “Riding Bikes with Kids on the Res.” A most auspicious start to the Festival.

I first met Alan Berecka on the first day of my very first Scissortail Festival back in 2011.  I was surprised to hear that he grew up near Utica, NY, I enjoyed his poetry, & invited him to read at Poets in the Park in Albany, NY later that same year. Today, he read poems in a mix of topics, including baseball (e.g., “The Crack,” “Reconciliation,” “Why Barry Bonds Belongs in Cooperstown”), his parents, on being an English major (“Angling with D.H. Lawrence”), among others. He ended with a poem for his wife that he likes to end with, “Why Matter Might Matter.” 

Mark Walling is also a Professor in the Department of English & Languages at ECU & has long been associated with the Scissortail Festival. He read from his short story collection I Can Hear Everything from Here, recently published by Turning Plow Press, a story about a man alone wanting a Dalmatian then finds one he names “Disco.” He then noted that Ken Hada never reads at this festival & invited him to read 3 poems selected by students from his new book, Come Before Winter (Turning Plow Press, 2023), the poems “Blue Jay at Dawn,” “In the End,” & “When Happiness Comes.” Good to hear Ken's fine work again.

Then on to the inevitable conflicts — my travel companion from Albany, Sally Rhoades, was reading across the courtyard in the Regents Room, but since I hear her read frequently in Albany she gave me dispensation to attend another session. I opted to stay in Estep Auditorium to hear 3 writers I had never heard, or heard of.

Mark Walling did the introductions for this session. 

First up was Nikki Herrin, an ECU alum who is now a high school teacher & softball coach. She was resplendent in a red hat that she wore in memory of the late poet/activist Dorothy Alexander who was a regular here at Scissortail. She began with an impassioned poem on teaching, “Oh But We Get the Summers Off,” & then on to mostly short, intense dramatic poems about relationships, many sounding like sticky notes venting to her boyfriend. She ended with a poem about going home after a Scissortail Festival — it made me wonder how many others in this & past audiences had written poems after being here.

Wendy Dunmeyer read mostly from her recently published full-length collection My Grandmother’s Last Letter (Lamar University Press). She introduced her reading by saying “our subject matter chooses us,” her subject matter being the physical abuse as a child at the hands of her father, a chilling image of her surrounding her bed with her toys that would wake her. But her reading included some healing poems not in the book, finding the connections she needed in Nature, other poems about finding hope in her new, different self. 

Mark introduced one of his students as the next reader, another example of how our subject matter chooses us, in Ben Payne’s case the subject matter was his own family & what he learned working in their plumbing business, & Ben’s life as a student & a young man falling in (& out) of love. His poems included also a tribute to “English Professors,” & “Backup Plan” was a funny piece about how there is no money in poetry.

I had made the correct choice finding wonderful voices I’d never heard before.

You can find bios of all these fine poets & everyone else on the schedule at the Scissortail Creative Writing Festival site.