On my way to do my brief poet bit on WCOM with Chris Frank and Joy Javits, I stopped by Weaver Street Market to grab a coffee. There I ran into Jon Wilner, ArtCenter director, and Ted Leinbaugh, MBE the expert in Medieval Literature. Jon was very excited that ArtCenter had just been named “Business of the Year” by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce. We talked briefly about the poem Jon had seen in the News and Observer and I was delighted that Ted was very familiar with Dafydd ap Gwilym who is a major influence on my poetry.
Turning around I nearly ran into Elena, who I’d last seen in Irkutsk, Siberia a couple of years back. She surprised me. I thought I had seen her on Sunday also at Weaver Street but I told myself “No it can’t be Elena she’s in Siberia.” She’s here working on a text book for use in Russia.
So Weaver Street, international, multi-disciplinary, arts meets scholarship and pretty good coffee too.