My Artistic Friends Over the Years Part 18; Jack H. and Eduardo L.

 On the left is the front of the 4W5 Cafe, one in Wilmington. It is where the Second Saturday poets met each note for a while. Second Saturday moved locations several times. We also met just up the street from here at Franco's Bar. 

Although Eduardo and Jack were part of the crown at Second Saturday, the is not where I first got their acquaintance. That was at Barnes and Nobles when the weekly poetry group movers from Borders where we used to meet until the young lady that facilitated tragically died. Then Dallas Kirk Gantt took over the leadership.

     when I first went to the Poetry group it was with some tripidation.  Despite having begun writing verse in Grade School and have some poems published, I was far from confident in myself, and especially so when I showed up with a small group of accomplished poets. The fellows who greeted me were older, already moving into the eights, with the except of Dallas. I took my wife along for moral support and had printed and folded about six of my poems I had stuffed in my pocket. But much to me surprise they like my stuff, especially one called "Library Spider". They found deep meaning in it, I guess; any rate, they hd m read it several times.

     Jack Hardy, pictured here on the right, had published a small volume. Is poems tend to be ver formal and historic, and he always read them in a boring voice.

     Eduardo LaCerata was from Portugal and had written many poems in his native language. He was always celebrated when he went back to his native country, an had honors from there.  He had written several books in Portuguese, but what he rote and read in our group were in English, usually in triple lines, often ironic and often political. He had a weakness for straying into political topics. We are there to read our poetry, no to espouse some cause. I do not discuss politics with others, so I always tried to get us back on course. But he was a delightful man; both were. 

    It has been a year since I was able to go to any such meetings, so I do not know if they both still survive. I hope they so.

My Artistic Friends Over the Years Part 17: Dallas, Beverly and Amanda

    There was a poetry group, which met at Borders, every week. I copied dow a couple go my poems and went to one of there meetings.  There was a young woman, college age, facilitating it at the time I first went. went She sadly died and the group was taken over by and the grip was taken over by Dallas Kirk Gantt.  He drove a Dart bus, but certain days of the week he took poetry to the prison inmates.  He later wrote a box about his adventured driving city bus. 

      

         He was a respected and colorful Wilmington Poet and became the editor of Poetry Vortex, which took a loot of my poems over the last twenty years.

        Here is an excerpt from an article he wrote in Dreamstreets Magazine a  number of years ago.

        

For years, Herbie the paperboy wandered the streets of Wilmington hawking his papers. He was a little, white-haired, leprechaun kind of fellow. His distinct nasal cry of: “Paper! Paper!” preceded him as he shambled through the downtown business district with a News Journal held aloft. (He’d sell old batteries, lighters, a bent screwdriver here, a well-worn pair of pliers there, and other castoff things that he’d find in the street in his wanderings.) He was an anachronism, holding to an old trade, in the face of news-stands, home delivery and coin-operated paper boxes.

He never bothered anyone, but he had a fearful worried look about him. He wore the same, disheveled clothes, with his worn pants perpetually tucked into his socks. Urban Legend’s undying rumor had it that he carried his life savings around with him because he didn’t believe in banks.
He kept it in his socks. He was mugged often enough, so some of the ugly souls obviously believed it. Everyone knew him. He was a fixture on the streets for years . . . and then he was gone.

     At our meetings we would read our works.  In the photo at the beginning of this he is with Beverly Romain, a poet who came to Second Saturday.  I loved to hear her read her work since she had this Jamaican accent that sounded so cool when she did a poem.

     Another young poet I became friends with and tried to encourage was Amanda Kimball. She was very shy about reading her work, but she was very good. I don't know what has happened to her since those early days of 2001, but she did readings with me and she became fairly well-known, appearing in an Article in "Delaware Today".      

      Dallas remained a friend, but my affliction has presented me from going to those meetings for a couple years now.  I thank him for his devotion to the gourd, even after we moved to Barnes 7 Noble, I wish him well with his book and hole someday to see him again.

    

         

My Artistic Friends Over the Years Part 16: New Start

By the mid-90s I had been away from publishing to the world. I had still been writing, because I have always viewed it as a curse more than a blessing; that is, once writing has you there is no escape from it. You have to write. It is like a powerful drug that I tried to walk away from. 

Yes, I had published a number of books for both my work at Wilmington Trust and as a Youth Minister and all at Laurel Hill Bible Church, but I had the itch to publish elsewhere again.

Oh, sure I had seen some of my poems make it into print, but where were my stores, essays and plays?  My close artistic friends were gone.

      In 1995 I read online the a theater company in Florida was looking for some new plays for their repertory company. I decided there was nothing to lose, so I sent them a play called, "Leslie in the Lyons Den". It dealt with the conflict of bringing our Christian values and views into the modern business world.  Mr Lyons was a demanding boss, and Leslie was our modern day Daniel, who was caught between pleasing their Boss or pleasing God. I named the main character Leslie so the part could be filled by a man or a woman.

     Much to my surprise the bought my play and added it to the program for Hearts of Tampa Acting, even contacting me to write their radio advertising. 

     Spurred by this success, I joined some local writing groups. First think I knew I had new artistic friends.