Massachusetts Poetry Festival, 2011

My new pottery friend, Mickey, invited me to attend a poetry reading in the Salem First Universalist Church this Saturday.  Part of a poetry festival, she said.  I've never been to a reading before...I've been to a slam once, but not a reading.  And why not- it's a great excuse to get out with people.  She said she was concerned it would be too stuffy, which meant she was definitely the right gal to go with.  :)

It turns out, the festival was really neat!!  I wandered about Salem earlier that day and bumped into a bunch of various poetry celebrations sprinkled about town.  A highlight was discovering the Typewriter Orchestra next to the Old Town Hall.  Along with secretarial percussion, they also did some radio theatre Prairie Home Companion-Style, which was just charming.

I also bought a small book of favorite poems, illustrated by it's seller.  The dear woman had compiled her father's favorite poems, flushed it out with other poems and illustrations, and published it.  I got it autographed, and got a free hand-printed bag commemorating the day.

That evening with Mickey I discovered that I might really enjoy poetry readings.  At times the authors may have talked too fast, but that is the luxury of reading.  I especially enjoyed Kim Richey of acoustic folk hero fame, and Patricia Smith of both the Boston Globe and HBO. 

Patricia's words were motown and true and unapologetic.  It was awesome.  A sample below. 

Hip-Hop Ghazal

BY PATRICIA SMITH

Gotta love us brown girls, munching on fat, swinging blue hips,
decked out in shells and splashes, Lawdie, bringing them woo hips.
As the jukebox teases, watch my sistas throat the heartbreak,
inhaling bassline, cracking backbone and singing thru hips.
Like something boneless, we glide silent, seeping 'tween floorboards,
wrapping around the hims, and ooh wee, clinging like glue hips.
Engines grinding, rotating, smokin', gotta pull back some.
Natural minds are lost at the mere sight of ringing true hips.
Gotta love us girls, just struttin' down Manhattan streets
killing the menfolk with a dose of that stinging view. Hips.
Crying 'bout getting old—Patricia, you need to get up off
what God gave you. Say a prayer and start slinging. Cue hips.

Mickey gave me some of her own poetry to read as well.  I'm very much looking forward to it!  :)