#NewThisDay Writing From My Photo Stream
Misty Morning Beach Sand
Beach Art, Longboat Key
It was a misty morning walk on the beach, and tonight, as the snow moon is almost full, I walked in Sarasota with a new friend from a coffee shop to the Florida Studio Theatre to a poetry reading produced by Bookstore 1, Poetry Life, to hear Terrance Hayes and Simon Armitage read their poems in an intimate, sold out theatre. I bought my tickets for this event last December, securing a front row seat. I found the event while looking to see what kind of poetry community lives here in Sarasota. My first week here, I hosted a gathering at Bookstore 1 for the International Women’s Writing Guild, and met a number of local women writers. When I realized Frank couldn’t attend with me tonight I invited a woman I had met at that event to join me. Then, to our surprise, as we took our seats in the theatre, we met another woman writer from our Guild gathering, so the three of us sat in the front row for this remarkable evening of poetry.
Terrance Hayes, Sarasota, FL
“I lock you in an American sonnet that is part prison,
Part panic closet, a little room in a house set aflame.
I lock you in a form that is part music box, part meat
Grinder to separate the song of the bird from the bone.
I lock your persona in a dream-inducing sleeper hold
While your better selves watch from the bleachers.. . . ”
“Meanwhile, somewhere in the state of Colorado, armed to the teeth with thousands of flowers, two boys entered the front door of their own high school and for almost four hours gave floral tributes to fellow students and members of the staff beginning with red roses strewn among unsuspecting pupils during their lunch hour, followed by posies of peace lilies and wild orchids. Most thought the whole show was one elaborate hoax using silk replicas of the real thing, plastic imitations, exquisite practical jokes, but the flowers were no more fake than you or I, and were handed out as compliments returned, favors repaid, in good faith, straight from the heart. No would not be taken for an answer. ”
Simon Armitage, Sarasota, FL
Bill Buchman, Sarasota, Florida