Poetry is a life-cherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
Mary Oliver
A Poetry Handbook
Small studio theatre tonight. Excuse me. Thank you. Excuse me. Sorry. Good evening. Excuse me. Thank you. Sorry, me again. Thank you. You know the kind of tired tension always present in a chattering audience arriving, finding its way to the seats – and the lack of connection between people come from none of us knows where? Of course you do. We all do it and think it, too. From the busy car park to the clambered-into chair. What are you lot doing here? As though we weren’t expecting other-goers.
Then lights down. Books. Small table. Chair. One man. One woman. Anthology. Brusque meets beauty. Poetry. Conversation. Conflagration. Connection. And suddenly everyone in the entire crotchety assembly seems to allow and to forgive and to know each other, for this little while at least. Intense, involved and involving. Earlier distractedness fading. The arts. Stranger-worlds melding into this new world before the ice cream and then again, more powerfully, for the next little while thereafter.
Poetry’s prophecy. Vivifying. Warming. Securing. Nourishing. Vital. In every soul’s small and demanding studio theatre.
wind in my wheels 🌱 