I’d hoped to throw a grand Poetry Slam Party like we did last year. As the month wanes, down to the last two days now, that window is quietly closing.
My friend Corey celebrated the month rightly, posting a different selection every day in April. These poems came as perfect, compact gifts. Sugar cubes to swirl in mint tea. Addictive, steady shots.
One poem Corey posted was written by our beloved poetry teacher at Carolina, Michael McFee. It reminded me why McFee was the teacher. Speaks to me still. And so I steal it from Corey, who stole it from McFee, so it may speak to you.
In celebration, everyday epistle is hosting a Poetry Slam Party.
This is not your ordinary poetry slam. You don’t have to write the poem you share or read it on an open mic in front of strangers. There are no hidden judges in the audience. We’re just here to enjoy reading and remembering the selections you choose.
All you have to do is share the title and author of a favorite poem.
If the mood strikes, tell why you like it, dazzle us with its best lines, or be my guest and share the whole enchilada.
Why?
Because Poetry is the shock of cool water on the tenth day of triple digits. Bonfire smoke and goose bumps in October. A wool coat wrapped in the silence of the first snow. A nest of newborn robins in the regal holly tree.
Who couldn’t use more of that?
I’ll get us started with Emily Dickinson’s My life closed twice before its close:
My life closed twice before its close—
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.
Let the Poetry Slam Party begin, good readers. The floor is yours.