Reading at Warren County Art's Market

A couple of weeks ago, on the Friday that grades were due for NCCU, I decided to head up to Warren County to check out the First Friday reading series spearheaded by my colleague Thomas Park. I've seen the Facebook invites for these events and have always wanted to go, but couldn't make the time during the school year. This time, I had just turned in grades, and was feeling a newfound sense of freedom with the summer approaching. I drove to Warren County, which I'd been to before when I was studying and writing about Soul City. It was interesting how the landscape opened up once I got close to Warrenton. The fields were bigger and seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see as the sun set.

I got there and saw Thomas hanging out outside of The Hive, a coffee shop and gathering place in Warrenton's downtown strip. He was surprised to see me. Once we went inside he introduced me to all of the gather readers, most of whom were locals. The event was for an anthology commemorating ten years of First Friday readings. My colleague Anita Williams was also there. She served as the MC for the event. There was pizza and blueberry wine. All of the sudden a sign up sheet appeared and was being passed around. I remembered that I had the papers from my last reading in Wilson in my car. I decided I'd read the piece I'd read at Larema. I put my name on the list.

The moving poems I heard before going up to read myself ranged in subject matter from a recounting of childhood trauma to an elegy to an arts space. Before I went up to read, Thomas gave me a nice introduction. I read the piece which went fine considering that I hadn't been planning on reading. Then when I went to sit down, Anita called me back up for a Q and A. This piece deals with a political candidate who committed a hit and run as a teenager. Anita asked about if the piece was part of a longer piece and what the inspiration for it was. I told her I'd originally written a longer version and that I was interested in the intersection between celebrity and politics—particularly with 47 in the White House. I didn't, however want to write about the president, just about the way things have become so skewed these days.

After hearing Thomas read a moving piece and Anita read a short story, I met some people who had known and even lived in houses owned by my late grandfather Dr. James Preston Green. When I went outside and was about to leave, Thomas told me stories of how my grandfather had built homes and rented them at a loss so that people would have places to live. Jorge, a tattoo artist from the shop next door, came out and talked to the two of us. It turned out that he'd worked at my childhood friend Kohen's shop Welcome Tattoo, when it had ben Choice Tattoo before litigation made them change the name. He had a tattoo of a rose on his neck that Kohen had done—one he'd seen in a dream. It was an interesting moment. I didn't expect that a trip to Warrenton would involve people that had connections to my skater friends back in Durham. I also didn't expect to learn so much about family history, although I guess I should have being that Warrenton is my family's ancestral homeland. It was another chapter in what has become a fun and far reaching series of readings. Some part of me wants to write about each one building up to a larger whole. But I think it's OK to enjoy things for what they are. I met some new folks. I expressed myself. I learned about my history. I had a great time and felt appreciated both in the moment and afterward. That's all I'm learning I can ask for. It means more than what's to come.