The Magic of PAGE
The first time I got ready to read at PAGE, I threw up. Lawrenceville--a Pittsburgh neighborhood a mere two miles from my house--was out of my comfort zone. Such is the emotional balkanization that can occur in a city of many neighborhoods, of hills one fears to climb and bridges one fears to cross.
That night, I did find friends, old and new. And magic in a high-ceilinged art gallery where poets, fiction writers, memoirists, and an inspired puppeteer performed to warm applause. Joann Kielar, who coordinates this periodic series, is a maker of many forms of art, and has the gift of gathering good spirits around her.
Last night's PAGE 10 began, for me, with a walk down Penn Avenue in early evening sunshine, the changeable weather once more promising summer. I turned into Lawrenceville at 37th Street, taking comfort from St. Augustine's Church, which dates to 1863. Its orange bricks have weathered many changes and sheltered many people.
I love the things that barring disaster, will outlive me, as they have outlived generations.
Inside the gallery, I listened to an old friend read a funny and liberating short story, and a new friend read the promising beginnings to three different tales. Heard fresh nuances in the familiar poems of a close friend, and laughed as the puppeteer staged a kitchen fight between a metal ladle and spatula, both fitted with googly eyes and cloth noses.
And I read this poem:
East End Aubade
One dawn I'll board the Chicago freight
through the long pull of the whistle.
One dawn I'll stop envying
the industry of the pileated woodpecker.
One dawn I'll gather a dozen suns
orange as the eggs of pampered city chickens.
One dawn the blackbirds on the wire
will share the secret of their Yinzer chatter.
One dawn I'll go through the arched door
somewhere between blue and indigo—
a new shade of the spectrum
vibrating like the very breath of ether.
Under the Kaufmann's Clock: Fiction, Poems, and Photographs of Pittsburgh
P.S. Goodreads giveaway for Under the Kaufmann's Clock ends THIS SATURDAY.
That night, I did find friends, old and new. And magic in a high-ceilinged art gallery where poets, fiction writers, memoirists, and an inspired puppeteer performed to warm applause. Joann Kielar, who coordinates this periodic series, is a maker of many forms of art, and has the gift of gathering good spirits around her.
Last night's PAGE 10 began, for me, with a walk down Penn Avenue in early evening sunshine, the changeable weather once more promising summer. I turned into Lawrenceville at 37th Street, taking comfort from St. Augustine's Church, which dates to 1863. Its orange bricks have weathered many changes and sheltered many people.
I love the things that barring disaster, will outlive me, as they have outlived generations.
Inside the gallery, I listened to an old friend read a funny and liberating short story, and a new friend read the promising beginnings to three different tales. Heard fresh nuances in the familiar poems of a close friend, and laughed as the puppeteer staged a kitchen fight between a metal ladle and spatula, both fitted with googly eyes and cloth noses.
And I read this poem:
East End Aubade
One dawn I'll board the Chicago freight
through the long pull of the whistle.
One dawn I'll stop envying
the industry of the pileated woodpecker.
One dawn I'll gather a dozen suns
orange as the eggs of pampered city chickens.
One dawn the blackbirds on the wire
will share the secret of their Yinzer chatter.
One dawn I'll go through the arched door
somewhere between blue and indigo—
a new shade of the spectrum
vibrating like the very breath of ether.
Under the Kaufmann's Clock: Fiction, Poems, and Photographs of Pittsburgh
P.S. Goodreads giveaway for Under the Kaufmann's Clock ends THIS SATURDAY.
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