Poetry in the street

Photo by aikijuanma

Here is a lovely story of youth adding beauty to the world by setting up a poetry stand and giving away instantly crafted poems to anyone who asked for them.

A few months ago as I was walking in Government Street in Victoria I met a woman standing beneath a tree outside Munro’s Books. The tree had small pieces of paper attached to them and when I looked closer I saw that they were poems, hanging on a “poet tree.” The poet turned out to be Yvonne Blomer and she asked me if she could read me a poem. When I said, with delight, “of course!” she asked whether I preferred any particular subject. I replied that I wished her to read me a poem about the territory of the open heart. She looked at me for a second and then reached into a file folder and pulled out this one:

To watch over the vineyards

O carrion crow, pulpy skull of scarecrow

going soft in your black bill,

in this fetish-orange field lies worship:

the sweep of glossed plumage over glistening

membrane; lies the sweet blood of purple skinned grape

cut on your sharp edged tomia,

shimmering there; sun-light on wet earth.

You too sweet to ripe; you black in the shadows, calling when you’re calling – –

the herds fly in dust gone crow, gone scare,

gone trill in clicks and shouts of krrrkrrr.

I applauded and remarked at how appropriate the poem was in many ways, especially in the resonance of the last sound, which approximated the French word for heart: coeur. She signed the card upon which the poem was written, handed it to me, and wished me a good day.
There is nothing bad that can come from poetry offered freely in the street.