Open Reading at the Nueva Posada

They gather at their tables in the heat or in the cold,
ears perked for the errors in the stories they’ll be told.
They’ll be listening for the puerile and and the grisly and the trite,
jotting down their notes for the misstatements that they’ll cite.

Then, their criticism over, they’ll play another game,
giving their approval and voicing their acclaim
for a perfect metaphor or meter that is tight. 
How you built the tension and got it all just right.

Thus do we meet to ebb and flow, to criticize and praise.—
to inform, amuse, maybe to bore or to amaze.
This is how we come together first to teach and then be taught
by sharing with each other the best that we have got!

Prompt words today are cold, table, grisly, puerile and criticism.