I went to a great poetry reading today by Willis and Tony Barnstone. It was held upstairs in the Firehouse at San Jose's History Park and sponsored by the San Jose Poetry Center and by the local Jacaranda Press. It's a baseball Saturday (the stadium is across the street) and the parking lots were full when I got there. But I was thrilled to get the senior discount $2, instead of the baseball day $6, and to actually get a spot. The reflections in the puddle in the dirt lot were really quite pretty, I thought, and the orange fencing punched up the color quotient. It took me a while to walk from there, but the reading hadn't started yet when I arrived. Nice cookies, Sun Chips and an odd assortment of orange pop, gingerale and juice.
My only previous knowledge of the name Barnstone was of the children's author, Aliki (Barnstone,) whose children's books were published under Aliki, as a single name. But at the library, we knew better and always added the typed label: Barnstone and shelved them under B. I guess she's the mom, but I didn't ask, but she also does adult stuff and translations like the guys I heard today and I read in Wikipedia, that his parents altered his name, and it is unusual. I always liked her books and I wanted to ask about her, but restrained myself. There is much more to tell, and I'll tell it in the next post.
Pictures of the Barnstones reading and the History Park here.
