Email sent May 1:
Dear all,
I hope many of you had the uplifting opportunity to hear the Academy of American Poet reading last night. Here is the list of poems read.
What you do not not receive from this list were the personal remarks and anecdotes by many of the readers. You also do not have the experience of watching a flood of positive comments tumbling in the zoom chat box like a waterfall for the two minute time given three times during the session. I noted 13,419 people at one point… it kept growing — people from all over the world!
to quote Margaret Wheatley, from "Turning to One Another", 2002, "There is no power greater than a community discovering what it cares about.”
I found the reading last night of the wonderful readers and top notch poets a confirmation of poetry I care about, read by people who by the example of their lives committed to others and dedication to words.
The wise voices and a communal chime of engagement with heart, to find the words that give us courage to give what we have, find the courage to give what we didn’t think we have…reminded us that it is in this spirit of giving and sharing, we feed each other — all of us.
I echo that thought to share with all of you! I know some of you since February 2008 when I started the first discussion groups at the Pittsford Library. Each person from the almost 200 receiving these weekly emails matters to me. The regular participants have created a family — and whether or not you attend, we all profit from our spirit of caring and sharing.
Complaint of El Río Grande by Richard Blanco[1] from How to Love a Country, 2019 (he read "Perhaps the World Ends Here, by Joy Harjo" saying, "poems pull light out of darkness...)
Identity Lessons by Abby Murray
Plato, or Why by Wislawa Szymborska
A Time to Talk by Robert Frost - 1874-1963
I Could Give All To Time by Robert Frost
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