You ever wanna thoroughly enjoy yrself while making friends while reading yr work to a poetry loving crowd of lovely lefties, go to Portland. Specifically any number of readings, especially long-running fixtures Tangent, Spare Room, along with promising upstarts such as If Not for Kidnap Poetry Series. I get a warm feeling reading Rodney Koeneke's Warsh post, which includes a list of poets who have performed, collaborated, & etc just in the past month or so. This time has coincided with particularly bad times for me, so when reading late last month with Rachel Zolf & B.T. Shaw for Tangent, I was as there as could be. And not there at all for any of these other readings, including what I understand to be an awesome night with Lorraine Graham & Mark Wallace. Any case, thanks again to Rodney, Jules, Kaia, & David, Maryrose, The Spare Roomies, Donald, et al. and everyone else curatorial, all who have made Portland a dynamic place for new poetries.