Last weekend was the west coast book launch / poetry reading of my chapbook, All in the Family. My friend Caitlyn, who I met a few summers ago at the Chesapeake Writer’s Conference, attended and did the honor of introducing me. Here’s what she said:

What drew me to Courtney’s poetry when we first met at a writer’s conference on the banks of the river where I went to college was the same thing that drew me to her. She is sharp, incisive, and open. It makes sense that this small framed but unapologetically fierce woman deals with international arsenals and answers to [4-star Admirals] who usually end up coming to her for help. Like in life, Courtney can be austere and severe, but still remain profoundly accessible on the page. She deals in heavy things – family dysfunction, illness, anger and fear, but she does so concretely. It is through these anecdotal windows into her truths that we see our own. What a gift it is to be confronted with honesty – in digestible stanzas, what an invitation to a fuller, deeper kind of living.

 

Wow. With an intro like that I had to bring my A-game to the reading.

The next day Caitlyn and I headed to Muir Woods for a day of hiking. While on one of the trails we happened upon a monk, hiking with his friend.

A monk and a man on the trail

A monk and a man on the trail

 

It’s not every day you see a monk hiking in the woods. In fact, for all the hiking I do, I’ve never seen a monk hiking. It was a bit surreal and magical. Later we happened upon him lying on a fallen redwood, the only sounds the woods around us.

A monk on a fallen redwood

A monk on a fallen redwood

 

I haven’t written a poem about it yet but I’m certain there’s one brewing in my brain.