The Two Boots Word Vault

On April 26, 2026 Dougie Padilla, Thomas R. Smith and I read poems for a Como Cottage Poetry Scrum.  This is the third round of this non-competitive scrum. We had a great time, and heard each other read great poems, too.

After five years working in Frogtown, and helping establish the Frogtown Community Association, I had to find other projects to work on. The United Way cut the FCA's share of funding for this impoverished neighborhood. Other funders followed the United Way's lead. Frogtown was the poorest and most heterogenous community in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. Hundreds of neighbors had volunteered at the center.  One year 4,000 of the 13,000 residents put in 40,000 volunteer hours at the center.  The moneyed interests abandoned the area much too soon.

On April 26, 2026 Dougie Padilla, Thomas R. Smith and myself were featured for a Como Cottage Poetry Scrum.  This is the second round of this non-competitive scrum. We had a great time, ribbing one another, too.

This essay was published in the first online issue of the magazine, Inroads, Creativity, Men, Soul on April 1, 2026.  The original Inroads Magazine existed in the late 80s and the early 90s and was published by Anthony Signorelli with contributing editors Jonathan Stensland, John Lang and Thomas R. Smith.  These magazines featured essays by James Hillman and poetry by Robert Bly and other men affiliated with or influenced by the Minnesota Men's Conferences Bly began in the early 80s.  A few of my essays and poems also appeared there.

On April 26, 2026 Dougie Padilla, Thomas R. Smith and myself were featured for a Como Cottage Poetry Scrum.  This is the first round for this non-competitive scrum. We had a great time, a phun time, as Dougie says.

On April 11, 2026 I presented a version of my take on Robert Bly's "The Vocation of Poetry and its Ten Labors" to the Australian group, The Fifth Direction. I gave examples of how poets respond to the ten labors, and a few opinions on why poets are so important to our cultural communities.  Walton Stanley, storyteller and co-presenter, gave a lead-in passage from Shakespeare's The Tempest, and he closed out the time with the preface from Walt Whitman's  The Leaves of Grass. Three of the best poets who have written in English, Shakespeare, Whitman, and Bly.

On March 26, 2026 Jesse Dermody, Scott Vetsch, and Timothy Young read poetry n their scrum format.  It was Timothy's first time in 40 years reading in Duluth, Minnesota. This time at Wussow's Concert Cafe. It was a pleasure to be back in the port city.

A Como Cottage Poetry Scrum featuring Michael Moos, Donna Isaac, Maureen Skelly, Timothy Young.

Maureen Skelly joined poets Donna Isaac, MIchael Moos, and Timothy Young for a Como Cottage Salon Poetry Scrum on February 22, 2026.