Poetry Alive in Hickory - April Edition 2010

An auspicious meeting at Taste Full Beans tonight as Poetry Alive brought poetic justice to Hickory.  The slate was SO good that Ted Pope came by to provide a special ring of authenticity, and he didn’t even read.  The poetry was THAT good.

Helen Losse began by spinning her web of special magic with thoughts and feelings and glimpses into those things we too often miss because we are too busy.  We are aware that they are happening, but we really don’t pay attention to how they feel or how we feel when they are happening.  Then someone like Helen takes us back and shows those things again, and brings our attention to some of the details and we say “Oh, yes - I’ve been there too.  Now I remember.  I wish I had paid more attention.”  She shines a flashlight into our past and lets us enjoy those parts of our life that we had missed the first time around.

Anderson Obrien followed as open mike reader with some poems that I thought at first were just fragments of comments until another of her comments suddenly made the others fit together in a different way than I had expected and instantly I saw a picture that I had not seen comming.  And I could only just sit there and softly say “wow”.   This is a special blending of art and magic.

After Fernand Chandonet read some well syllabled pieces, the first featured reader of the evening, Harry Calhoun, from Raliegh, took over.  His work was a lot of fun.  It is obvious that he and his wife enjoy  their life and we all enjoyed his sharing of their surprising and happy discoveries, and their treasured memories of friends and parents. He tells us about life, and shows us how to notice it and to appreciate it.

The evening was completed by Tim Peeler who took us through a veil that normally separates a world we all know - kind of - the world of the small motel.  We  all have stayed overnight in these places many times.  Tim thoughtfully told us some things we never knew happened there - like why the water in the swimming pool wants to check out too, and what to say to those ghosts who inhabit the dark, vacant rooms.