Country Fried Panda Fest
*authors note: this blog post appeared first last week on my Patreon account. You can find that by searching Dan Denton on Patreon
Country Fried Pandas
I’m home in Toledo now, back from the lush green rolling hills of Kentucky where I had the honor of participating in the Country Fried Panda Festival. The Fest was hosted in multiple venues of downtown Shelbyville, KY and organized by the artist and writer, Bree. It featured around 40 different poets and songwriters from a dozen different states and one from Germany.
These kinds of weekends aren’t the book selling, barn blazing readings of book touring, but more like a convention for poets to gather and share their work and experiences with one another. Much like any other convention for any other trade or group of folks, for me, this past weekend was about getting out of town and escaping the daily rat race, and networking and learning with other artists that are doing the things I’m doing.
And the sharing of experience, the stories from the older poets about the poets we idolize that came before them. The rowdy and raucous element of the touring street poets that were present. The meeting in person of many poets I’ve been friends with on social media but not met until now.
On Friday and Saturday night we all read our poems with a backing band improvising music behind us. The studio that hosted us was a great vibe, inviting kind of space and the energy was electric and full of unparalleled poetic performances. We mingled and performed together until late at night. About 15 of us shared a large Air bnb cabin about 20 minutes away, and many of us stayed up until three or four each morning, sitting in a circle around a bonfire, sometimes reading poems and sometimes trading stories.
Saturday morning featured a book swap that I got to late, but I managed to trade all the books I brought and the half dozen broadside posters. I left with a stack of books, CD’s and one DVD documentary, and that stack was bigger than the stack of books I brought. Such is the love and generosity of the underground poetry community, and the shared knowledge that it’s better to get our work out there in other’s hands, and hope that leads to more opportunities and collaboration down the road.
Saturday from 10a-3p we all met in a cool brewery for the largest and longest reading of the weekend. The reading hosted over 20 featured readers including me, and felt like a marathon session, but we endured with the help of the incredible talent performing, free food and dessert and the cash bar of the brewery providing tasty beverages to soothe our parched hearts. I enjoyed a “Sober Carpenter Red Irish Ale” one of the non-alcoholic drinks offered on their extensive menu.
There was a last improvisational noise making event Sunday afternoon with the dozen straggling artists left enthusiastically reading poems, playing guitars and stomping feet, drumming on shelves, whistling and yee-hawing in a happy release of creativity that rivaled the holiness of any holy house in this land.
In between there was morning coffee overlooking a small mountain pond, a pond that fellow Nashville poet and songwriter Lilly Rex caught a large, large mouth bass from. There was bad gas station food, and one hefty cabin cookout of cheeseburgers, both meat-ful and meatless, and brats and salads and coleslaw. Memories were made on the cabin’s spacious back deck and in the poetry venues alike. A weekend full of inspiration and camaraderie that’s so important for my artist heart.
One thing that was reiterated and evident again this weekend is that when I’m granted time and space to share my poetry and words in a performance environment I always win over a few more fans and supporters every time. More confirmation that no matter what else life brings, writing, creating and performing art is exactly what I should be doing as much as I possibly can. More confidence to believe in my work, and that new and constant support and encouragement from those new followers and from folks like you reading this right now, continues to inspire me to more fearlessly pursue the honesty and grit of my blue collar work. Thank you, and thanks Bree for hosting me this past weekend.
I’m back in Toledo, working on my next book’s manuscript via daily emails and idea sharing with Michele McDannold, the indefatigable editor of Roadside Press, the publisher of my next novel due out this fall. It’s titled The Dead & The Desperate and I can’t wait to share more about it and the publishing process along the way.
Thanks for fallowing along on my writing adventures. Much love, Dan.