~ LONGHOUSE VISITS ~

Bill Porter (Red Pine), Bob Arnold, Susan Arnold
March 2009

Okay — here we are recently in town, one day after a slush storm — Bill Porter (Red Pine) has just come down from up north Vermont on the morning bus. He's a long way from home, but he came prepared. Since he has never been to Brattleboro before, I suggested we meet at Amy's Bakery, a fine local hangout of tourists-meet-flannel. So Bill made for himself a hitchhikers cardboard sign, and within five minutes he said he had a ride and was carried from the bus station into town. Nothing like a self-reliant friend. We had missed one another when he was last in Vermont five years ago, and this time we wanted to nail it. Fresh from a session of poets and zen over the weekend in Montreal ( I was generously invited to be a participant but for family reasons couldn't get away ), Bill came down with good cheer for me from fellow friends, plus some gorgeous books as a gift from Myoko; and I thank you Myoko! Poetry is especially lovely for this. Bill presented the books over a table of tea and utensils and sandwiches with a window full behind us of RR tracks, iced over Connecticut River and Wantastiquet Mountain standing strong.

Please check out Bill Porter / Red Pine's 2006 title Dancing With the Dead Language, Poetry and the Art of Translation from Longhouse. Plus his many other titles from Copper Canyon, Counterpoint and Empty Bowl. Each one an exhilaration. If you're heading off to a desert island or mountain cave you might want to take along The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, or, Poems of the Masters.