I attended my first Poetry Society of Texas (PST) Summer Conference this year, and it was a great experience. Possibly my favorite part was in between sessions getting to meet poets from all around the state, mostly from DFW, Tyler and Houston, but I’m curious if there were poets from some of our other chapters there too. Being involved in an interest-focused community is everything, from the sharing of ideas (publishing, techniques, favorite authors, etc.) to the general commiseration around being an artist.

I’ve been a member of the Poetry Society of Texas and the Denton Poetry Assembly (chapter) for two years now. Since the conference was held in Denton, my chapter hosted it. Late last year, I was invited to run a short poetry workshop for it. I said, “of course!” because I tend to say “yes” to things. And then I promptly came home and asked myself, “Now, what topic am I going to deliver a workshop about?” But as I looked through my notes, and the books that I’ve tabbed, and I thought about my own poetry goals and philosophy, the arrow really began pointing toward this idea of ambiguity in poetry. I was able to pull in perspectives and poems from a variety of sources to assemble a lecture and workshop. I was really happy with the result, and got some great feedback from the participants afterward. The full title of my workshop was “Balancing the Concrete and the Ambiguous.”

At any rate, I look forward to attending another PST summer conference and renewing friendships and diving back into that poetry community.