{"id":575,"date":"2011-01-24T13:12:53","date_gmt":"2011-01-24T18:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=575"},"modified":"2011-01-25T16:12:57","modified_gmt":"2011-01-25T21:12:57","slug":"burns-bash-boffo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/?p=575","title":{"rendered":"Burns Bash: Boffo!"},"content":{"rendered":"

How can it be that twelve people can so enjoy a meal celebrating the life and work of a Scottish poet who died 214 years ago?\u00a0 So unexpected, but once again, we did.\u00a0\u00a0Conversation was lively.\u00a0 The food was delicious.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We toasted Burns, read some of his poems, and ate haggis.\u00a0 We spent almost four hours eating and drinking, talking and toasting, and reading and singing and listening to Robert Burns’ poems.<\/p>\n

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Toasting the haggis<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

People were involved.\u00a0 This is vital for a literary event.\u00a0 When a group gathers for an event that involves poems, songs, or some other literary focus, it’s not meant to be a performance.\u00a0 To be sure, as the chairman and memorizer of much Burns, I took an active role.\u00a0 Still, from singing some songs (Green Grow the Rashes and Auld Lang Syne), plus reading various Burns poems (several guests brought their own selections to read), and\u00a0our round robin reading of Tam O’ Shanter, everybody participated.<\/p>\n

I also have come to recognize the power of a poem, read or recited directly to a person or a small group of people.\u00a0 Somehow, speaking a poem among others infuses whoever is in earshot with something, a jolt of energy or peace or fun (or maybe a bit of each).\u00a0 It’s a powerful experience that re-confirmed my commitment to conducting literary events as one part of a life lived literarily.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How can it be that twelve people can so enjoy a meal celebrating the life and work of a Scottish poet who died 214 years ago?\u00a0 So unexpected, but once again, we did.\u00a0\u00a0Conversation was lively.\u00a0 The food was delicious.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,39],"tags":[30,31],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7364,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions\/7364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thelifeliterary.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}