Live from David Mason’s Reading

Ok, I am not reporting live, as the reading was last week, but it was liveLY: David Mason, Colorado’s Poet Laureate, really is a dynamic presenter. His talk at the renovated Loveland Library—beautiful, a must see--began very appropriately with an introduction that was poetic itself, not surprisingly since it was delivered by our own Veronica Patterson. She also served in the role of the “warm-up poet,” reading two of her own works. Most appropriately she included one about Ludlow, a great segue into Mason’s talk as his book-length poem (a “novel in verse”) is about the Ludlow massacre in southern Colorado (http://www.santafetrailscenicandhistoricbyway.org/ludlow.html). He shared his enthusiasm for writing in a broad range of poetic genres and read from works which reflected that. I am especially excited, given my daughter’s opera career, to know that his libretto for the new opera based on Hawthorne’s The Scarlett Letter is due out in print on March 1 (from Red Hen Press). Opera Colorado has the premier, score by Lori Laitman, in 2013 (http://operacolorado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/scarlet.pdf) You’ll fall in love with this poet's on his covers: they are a beautiful tease for the treasures that await inside.