Happy National Poetry Month!

Linda Buckmaster, Belfast poet laureate, and I launched our Poems Downtown project yesterday. I chose poems appropriate to 22 businesses in downtown Belfast (which is about four blocks long) and the merchants put them up in the windows, and then yesterday Linda and I went around and read them as part of a "spring is here" downtown business celebration. (There were also wandering minstrels in the form of a large fiddle band, and some women dressed in masks, and the stores were giving out cookies and such--fun!) We began in the cafe of the food co-op: Linda called everyone to attention as they were eating their lunches and I read Wendell Berry. Everywhere we went, people seemed to be really happy to hear poems. Wonderful Belfast!

Here are some shots from the project:
Sandburg's "The Hammer" at the hardware store; a Lucille Clifton poem about her mama for Yo Mamma's Home decor store; Linda reading Molly Tenenbaum at The Good Table.

Ron Padgett's "The Love Cook" for Darby's restaurant; a poem about knitting for Heavenly Socks Yarn store. And a Denise Levertov poem about a broken sandel for Colburns Shoe Store, the oldest contiunally operating shoe store in America.