First Thursday

Fayetteville's First Thursday was a blast.  There were lots of vendors and musicians all together around the square.

Unlike the Block Street Block Party, people here were skeptical.  "Poetry on the fly?  That's... cute."  And they'd walk on and I imagined them thinking, "Isn't Fayetteville great, quaint, that someone would sit so idly and contentedly?"  

It was like that--empty of connection--for the first half hour.  But then the Hearts Opened like a can of natural soda, like a bottle of kambucha: fizzing colorful, tickling my nose and all my senses. 

The requests went something like this:

-- "I'd like a poem about a silver spider.  Mom, what do you want in it?" And Mom didn't express a strong opinion, and the child said, "But you're paying for half of it. What do you want in there?"

-- "I'm hopeful that I'll get back with my girlfriend and terrified that I won't."

-- "I'd like a poem about an earthworm.  His name?  His name is Bob.  His best friend?  It's a spider.  Named Willie.  Where are they?  In Arkansas.  A park or a garden?  Mmmmm," and she twisted like an earthworm, "A park."

I sat on the square, typing under my headlamp when the sun melted into Oklahoma and whatever else is that direction.

Poetry While You Wait

The debut of Poetry While You Wait was a lovely success.  Fayetteville's Block Street Block Party provided a loving place to meet beautiful people that wanted poems about everything from:

-- Superheroes

-- New Beginnings

-- Do we really listen ever, to anyone? To people with whom we are in relationship?

-- A lover as yet unmet

The poetry, just like the music I hear, is always there and folks seemed to appreciate it.  I had three criers, and that alone is more than any poet could ask.