Over the weekend, the Grand Fenwick Poetry Reception Grand Council held its annual "Reception Council Reception", on the lavish spread known as Duchess Vilkommen Park, under particolored tents.

What is the GFPRGC, you ask? You, perky young visitor to this little "Window on the Duchy" of mine? The GFPRGC is a venerable association of associations, actually actually, founded in 1439, after the last in a long (endless, actually actually) line of Potage Family Laureates passed on to that big old Fenwick in the sky. After the Potages, no one was quite sure how poetry should be "received", when it appeared (unaccountably, as always, like a mild burp in the serene ruminative digestive process of Duchy animal husbandry). So a group of ministerial minstrels got together and founded the Grand Council in the middle of the night, after one of those famous middle-night Middle-Ages roustabout binges, among the tankards and tank bellies & the frog legs, you know what I mean.

Well, the Grand Council of Duchy Poetic Receiving (as it is also sometimes known) has solved all that & related problems, thank heaven. Now, when a little book of poetry appears, someone from the Council is always ready to "receive" it, digest it, regurgitate it if necessary, and tell everyone within ear or arrow-shot of its sparky "existence", so to speak. This, in the long run, assists mightily with the calendrical adjustments of cultural get-togethers & events in the Duchy, since, if no one "received" poetry when it appeared, no one would know the proper protocol for entertaining the author (slap on back? slap in face?), or even more important, where & when to announce their impending or positive author-ship.

Thank goodness we have a thing like the Grand Council! Thank heavens we have a Duchy! Thanks all around, everybody!