The night before, I flew up from Santa Barbara and made my ritual preconference trip to Brandy Ho's Hunan restaurant just down the street from City Lights Books. Been going there for decades and recommend it to you. The first day offered panels on new approaches to African American poetry, a round table on 19th century African American literature and much more. One of the peak moments for me was the day's concluding reading by Giannina Braschi. I'd been introduced to her work last Fall via the Spanglish edition of her genre-defying work Yo Yo Boing! I brought my copies of her books to get signed, only to find that Amazon was giving her books away free at the reading. Following the opening night reception, several of us poetry people went over to the Slanted Door Restaurant for dinner with Cecil Giscombe, who was heading off to Texas the next morning. The Slanted Door couldn't serve me a rum and coke because they do not serve anything containing corn fructose. They do, however, serve copious quantities of cotton candy for desert.
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