Actually, I think we escaped this year with barely a flurry. Wait. I may be speaking too soon, the forecast I’m looking at on my tablet has rain with a low of 28° F this Tuesday and a slight chance of a flurry. And that’s despite a ridiculous summer preview today with a high just over 80. Sigh. I am hoping the rest of the month is just spring. I need some spring, and I have no desire to skip ahead to summer already. Let’s not wish my time away prematurely, alright?
So I mentioned before that last Sunday I was the guest poet at a local historical spot called The Joseph Priestley Memorial Chapel. They do a secular service of music and poetry on the first Sunday of each month and I was lucky enough to be asked in for National Poetry Month.
There was some lovely music on the old pipe organ and the piano by Hope Kopf. We enjoyed readings from the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, Sara Teasdale. Sara couldn’t be there in person though, something about the award having been given in 1918, but my heavens, George Manning, the gentleman who stood in for her, has a marvelous and resonant reading voice!
Next month it will be my dear friend Ann Keeler Evans reading at Priestley. I’ve featured Ann here several times before, including this fantastic street poetry reading for the International Day of the Girl. If you’re in the area, I’ll sit in your pew (That sentence looks far worse in print than it sounded in my head).
In the following video clips I cut out a couple of poems and much of the babble, though there really wasn’t much of that. I’ve attempted to give only a little background, and let the poems speak for themselves as much as possible. Mostly I read from the manuscript I am submitting around for an upcoming chapbook called The School Bus Poems. The second video is a little longer, but the two of them together will take up less than ten minutes of your time. Thanks for indulging me.
It was a fun morning, and one of the first really beautiful days of spring here. No snow, but yes, lilies and crocuses were starting to bloom, right out front of the chapel. So the opening short poem was quite appropriate. I apologize for the background noise, as it is still only a little Flip Mino camera I am using. They don’t even sell those things anymore!
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