West Egg Literati has planned the following events for spring semester. Mark your calendars and plan on joining us!

We just saw signs that some ramps to and from I-35E are closed during the weekends. Please make sure to have a couple of alternate routes to Highland Park (1403 Montreal Avenue, Saint Paul, 55116) in case your exit is closed.

West Egg will also be providing some protein for grilling. (Still potluck, so bring whatever you'd like to share.)

Sunday, May 18
Final Reading Surrounded by Nature
Highland Park Picnic Pavilion
5 to 10 p.m.

Oh, the joy of survival!  Come and celebrate your year with your fellow West Eggers. 

Come to:

• hang out
• bring a dish to share
• enter a drawing
• meet up with classmates new and old
• check out our cool t-shirts
• relax at the end of another hectic semester/year
• read for 3-5 minutes (10 if it’s from your thesis
  [we love you guys!])
• eat, drink, and party.

Bring your family; they’ll look great in WestEgg t-shirts . . . 

We’ll be providing soft drinks; you can bring whatever else you’d like. There’s even a grill at our swanky pavilion!

For directions, visit the Web site, or use the following address: 1403 Montreal Ave., Saint Paul, MN 55116.

FYI: The possession and consumption of non-intoxicating malt liquor (containing not more than 3.2% alcohol by weight) is permitted from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. within the designated picnic areas. Glass beverage containers are not allowed.

Random Fun Times

Stay tuned this summer if you’re in the Twin Cities for monthly informal gatherings of a purely social nature in area cafes and bars.  Stop by to commiserate, gripe, unwind, or just drink coffee, play pool, or talk to a West Egger you don’t know.  We think you’ll find it interesting and relaxing.


Sunday, February 17
Where's My Music?
Landmark Center
75 West 5th Street; Saint Paul
1:00 to 4:00 p.m.

Inspiration comes from everywhere. Let's find some together! Join fellow West Eggers for an afternoon of writing around the rich rooms of Landmark Center. With FIVE! gallery spaces showcasing woodcraft, musical history, photography and more, there's sure to be plenty of pen scratching. So if your muse is elusive or you just want a heaping dose of what my grandma calls "culture," then come find this interesting with us. Bring a notebook and your favorite pen(cil). 

For info about Landmark Center: www.landmarkcenter.org/museums.html


Sunday, March 2
Poets & Singers
Gary Schmidt and Phyllis Root
MPLS Center for Performing Arts (more details to come)   
6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
 
A local shape-note singing group that was looking to do a collaboration with local artists is teaming up with West Egg!  The creator of the event would really like poets to read throughout the evening as a sort of continuing conversation between the poems and the songs. While we hate to exclude prose writers in our program, due to time constraints we'll probably have to insist that only poems and short-short prose pieces be read.

What is shape-note singing?
Shape-note music is more democratic than a voting booth. Singers call the songs they want to sing on a whim, and there's never any set order, which makes it difficult to base a theme around the songs themselves. However, shape-note music evolved, in part, from a tradition of making art with what you had, which usually wasn't much on the surface. The shapes of the notes helped less formally trained singers learn to read music and the lack of any instrumental accompaniment (like piano) speaks to the fact that many early singers lived in rural areas without access to a piano or knowledge of how to play one anyway. Above all, the tradition is about community over "ability" and what our culture tends to think of as solo performance, which has of course engendered thousands of able songs and singers.

What are we looking for?
We'd do well to concentrate on that theme of community. If poets want to create something new for the reading, we would suggest writing about community or writing free verse or simply writing with the idea that great art is not always solo performance-based. While we will be reading our individual work aloud, the audience will be listening in effort to hear what's being said rather than who's saying it.

We’re looking for 5-10 poets.  If you want to be one of them, get in touch with us!  (NOTE: Since this is a family event, keep the language rated G.)

Sunday, April 6
Craft Night Meet the Cornell Box
GLS House (tentative info, more details to come)
1:00 to 4:00 p.m.

Do you want to get in touch with your inner Joseph Cornell? Are there images you would like to exorcise from your mind?  Look in your junk drawers, excavate the attic, and delve into the bottom of your sock drawers. Bring in maps from trips you've never taken, the ballerina from your 9th birthday cake, and that key you haven't found the lock for in the past decade. Combine them all in the artistic alchemy that is the Cornell Box. Weekend afternoons may never be the same again.

For more information, visit www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=264  or www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/cornell.

Sunday, May 18
Final Reading Surrounded by Nature
Location TBA

Oh, the joy of survival!  Come and eat and read and mingle with your fellow West Eggers at the conclusion of another successful semester and year.  There will be drawings, prizes, and time to relax and talk and goof around. There may also be some extended reading time for our graduates . . .


Random Fun Times

Stay tuned for monthly informal gatherings of a purely social nature in area cafes and bars. Stop by to commiserate, gripe, unwind, or just drink coffee, play pool, or talk to a West Egger you don’t know. We think you’ll find it interesting and relaxing.