Reading March 31, 2016

3/28/2016

12:51 PM

1. Welcome
1. Welcome to this first reading by the Poets’ Roundtable of the Bigelow Senior Center. I am Emerson Gilmore and the poets you’ll hear tonight are kind enough to let me sit at the head of the table at each meeting. Let me begin by thanking Julie DeMarco, Margaret Andrews and the rest of the staff for their kind and generous support of the Roundtable.
2. April is National Poetry Month, a time to celebrate the art. The month is filled nationwide with readings, meetings, workshops and other events to encourage the reading, writing and appreciation of poetry.

From the Fairfield Public Library newsletter:

Poem in Your Pocket Week Thursday, April 21–Thursday, April 28 April is National Poetry Month and April 21 is Poem in Your Pocket Day. Started in New York City in 2002, and taken national in 2008 by the American Academy of Poets, Poem in Your Pocket Day celebrates poetry by having people tuck a poem in their pocket to share wherever they go that day. Here at the Fairfield Public Library we will have Poem in Your Pocket Week, because one day just isn’t enough. You will see denim pockets filled with poems hanging in various places in the Library. Take one (or more!) from our pockets and put in yours to share with family, friends, and work mates.

I encourage each of you not only to buy a book of poetry but also to give one as your personal celebration.

3. A couple of points of business:
1. We have scheduled an open mic. There should be a sign-up list. The rules are as follows;
1. One poem
2. It must be original
3. Forty lines or fewer
4. I will call you up
5. You will give us the name of your poem
6. You will read your poem
7. No discussion, no introduction, no explanation
8. When finished, say “thank you” and exit to wild applause

2. We will attempt to finish by 8PM. If we don’t we’ll all be thrown out into the street anyway.
3. Beginning on Saturday, April 2, 2016 at 9:30AM I will be conducting a Writers’ Roundtable. At this roundtable we will consider all forms-- prose (stories, fiction, non-fiction, memoirs) and, although it is not meant to be the same as the Poets’ Roundtable, the occasional poem from those unable to attend our daytime poetry group. I hope to see many of you there this coming Saturday.

Halley's Comet by Stanley Kunitz

Stanley Kunitz’s father committed suicide six weeks before Stanley was born.

     ": Stanley Kunitz "Halley's Comet"

     Halley's Comet

     

     Miss Murphy in first grade

     wrote its name in chalk

     across the board and told us

     it was roaring down the stormtracks

     of the Milky Way at frightful speed

     and if it wandered off its course

     and smashed into the earth

     there’d be no school tomorrow.

     A red-bearded preacher from the hills

     with a wild look in his eyes

     stood in the public square

     at the playground’s edge

     proclaiming he was sent by God

     to save every one of us,

     even the little children.

     “Repent, ye sinners!” he shouted,

     waving his hand-lettered sign.

     At supper I felt sad to think

     that it was probably

     the last meal I’d share

     with my mother and my sisters;

     but I felt excited too

     and scarcely touched my plate.

     So mother scolded me

     and sent me early to my room.

     The whole family’s asleep

     except for me. They never heard me steal

     into the stairwell hall and climb

     the ladder to the fresh night air.

     Look for me, Father, on the roof

     of the red brick building

     at the foot of Green Street—

     that’s where we live, you know, on the top floor.

     I’m the boy in the white flannel gown

     sprawled on this coarse gravel bed

     searching the starry sky,

     waiting for the world to end."

   - Kunitz was 92 when he wrote this poem

Stanley died in 2006 just short of his 101st birthday.

“Through the years I have found this gift of poetry to be life-sustaining, life-enhancing, and absolutely unpredictable. Does one live, therefore, for the sake of poetry? No, the reverse is true: poetry is for the sake of the life.”

By the way, the next perihelion of Haley’s Comet will be in 2061 and I will be 115 then.

5. The Bigelow Poets meet on the first and third Thursdays of each month from 1-2:30PM. We read our poems, discuss them and encourage one another.  The next meeting is on April 7 from 1-2:30PM probably in the same room we are in tonight.

We aspire to the work of Stanley Kunitz in the above poem. We are not senior citizens trying to keep our washed-up minds sharp but rather seniors with sharp minds trying to write poetry that is meaningful and makes a difference.

6. (Remarks re Don Sheehan who said “When the choice is between intelligence and compassion, choose compassion. The result witll be a higher intelligence.”) We have found the roundtable to be a safe, comfortable place for us to progress toward the full realization of our poems.

7. The poems you hear tonight will be happy, sad, touching and, above all, honest. You will hear from readers who are present and a couple who are not here but who have graciously let us read in their stead.

2. My checklist
1. Podium vs music stand
2. Music during meet and greet half hour?
3. List of readers
1. Betsy
2. Louis
3. Helen
4. Lorraine Hunts
5. Lorraine and I will read from Ed Ahern
6. Peggy Search
7. Peg Rendl
8. Gerard Coulombe
9. Rich Anderson
10. Dot
11. Me
12. Me reading Stanley
4. Set up sign-up sheet for the open mic