Kundiman Day 3 1/4

Quick Summary:

AMAZING day today. Jon Pineda taught the "Spark Writing" session and used Du Fu's line, "One by one the stars go out" as the prompt. The fellows went straight to work and churned out amazing poems that left many of us with our jaws on the floor.

Later in the evening, we had the Kundiman Gala retreat reading. There were lots of tears of love and lots of celebrations. It's hard to really describe it and do it justice . . . Anyway, each of the three groups had to designate a reader for the gala to read alongside the faculty. Patrick as always wowed us with his fabulous reading. Aimee was equally as spectacular. . . and Lawson offered his spot on the docket to his workshop students. Together, they performed a fantastic collaborative piece while Kelly Tsai did interpretive movements.

We loitered around for a bit after the reading and then we all headed to Sarah and Joseph's suite. Patrick, Jon Wei, Ron V., and Jon Pineda jammed on guitars while the rest of us were drinking bad whiskey. We capped off the musical celebration with the Kundiman rendition of John Cougar Mellencamp's Jack and Diane

After, we went as a whole conference to Orbitz, a bar on The Corner. They tuned the television to HBO's Def Poetry Jam and let us watch Kelly Tsai's fabulous performance.

All in all, we had a very busy day. I'm tired and again it's almost 2AM.