Word catcher by Irene Koronas ( A Report on Breaking Bagels With The Bards) Finagle-A Bagel basement Harvard Square, Cambridge every Sat 9AM all poets welcome...

doug holder and harris gardner host breaking bagelswith the bards, a gathering of poets downstairs atfinagle a bagel in harvard square, on saturdaymorning. there are a core group of us who talk allkinds of "stuff." i am attempting to catch some of thebanter, sentences, and words that i feel are useful inwriting my poetry or anyone else who want to use saidwords in their poetry. i will try to report the goingsand comings of the poets, all of which, aredistinguished members of their communities. please donot be put off by the word distinguished; to clarifythe word and its meaning in the context of bread inround form, we, the poets perceive ourselves asdifferent from the ordinary. not extraordinary butapart from the ordinary. (does this mean we are inactuality ordinary?) (personally, i hope so) i heardphillip, one of the regulars, explain the distinctionof "out of the ordinary."this week some of us identified with sea glass, theround edges of being worn away by the push and pull ofliving with words. this all sounds more profound thanour talks really are. but because i am able to sithere writing about what was, i can afford to uselanguage in any manner i chose. (what'd ya think ofthat?)the idea to write a brief newsletter, occurred to meduring my subway ride to boston, after our meeting. iguess the steel wheels, the fast roll over tracks,helped me to put together thoughts about how to usewhat i hear, from the bards. next meeting i willattempt to take more accurate notes, noting thecomplete names of those there. like a 12 step meeting,i only use first names and sometimes, i'm hard pressedto do that, so i just say, "hey." the surface oftrains is obviously a great place for me to think.here is a list of some of the sentences-topics-andwords i caught in our underground eatery:if hogwarts had an evil twin it'd be this building.(referring to a building in newton)i went to the park to find a poem. (harris's poem hewas working on, writing on the back of a large manilaenvelope.)i'm out in a transitional valley. (i only caught partof this saying, so i made up the rest)ann sexton asked why the attendants were holding thearms of patients. she was told it was to keep theclients, who were on suicide watch, calm. touch methodused in the 70's. (doug relates so many wonderfulobservations and stories from his place of employment)does drakes cupcakes still exist? what did the logolook like?ducks - duckettes - duckass of windsor (no disrespectintended in any of these words)drakes is the masculine, ducks the femininethus the duckettesarchaic words (sooth - truth)ambiguous words (housekeeper)buffalo universityback seat memoriesjars of memories on the windowsillour conversations often involve how to print achapbook, who is in the process of printing achapbook, what venues we maybe featured readers, openmikes and of course we network, that is (a littlelike) (wearing net stockings, we are always trying tostraighten the seams.) we hardly ever talk aboutsports, laundry, taking out the garbage, sometimes wediscus politics, we never use words like, diet,exotic, rich, once in a while you'll hear a swear comeout of my mouth, but, i've never heard any other poetuse, what i call, foul, chicken breath syllables.this is the truth as i know 'it', or as i heard fromthe poets, (putting aside, the fact that my hearing isfiltered by my own idea of what i'm hearing. thismeans, i'm losing some of my hearing.) we sit around along formica table that is situated close to the restrooms; a down to, an underground exchange of goodwill,and most of my clothing is bought from the second handstores. we are as diverse as most poets are, eatingand sipping on each other's conversations, forinspiration and companionship.irene koronas