More of this Feature • “We started this poetry reading 4 years ago...”

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....I'm back in the summer of two thousand, the infamous day that tore us down. A poet had gone out on a limb. He had felt the need to start the year off with a bang, to climb on to the roof of the library and start the reading from above. No one was against this idea. We all felt the pipe could hold him. It was only three stories high. I hate being the only one who saw him fall, but this isn't a suspense story. He is alive and well, after some hospital time and a few metal rods got him straight. But it was the end of the series....

Right? It's about seven-thirty according to the Big Ben-sized clock across the street. It’s the average thirty-plus people who come every week. Here’s Shannon making us laugh our bladders empty. Ghost making us feel sexy and sad-eyed. Ray is still ranting about the problems of life, only he makes it sound good. And here I go, passing out the hand-out for the week. Someone thanks me and says we stopped her mind block, and another poet who has only been here a few times reads poetry about us, and we all clap.

But it's more than clapping. There are so many mouths, so many ears, so many hands, this is an ovation you can hear on the street, and people are still coming up. The distorted circle gets larger. Michael reads his sonnets about his wife, Marty reads his poetry about every God he can get his hands on, KK reads his poems about the grass in Easter baskets, I read my poems about poems....

There is laughter and crying and poetry for an endless three hours. This is no illusion: we are giving Pittsburgh poetry, and they are wanting it and needing it and using it and loving every second. It's eight-thirty and we dread nine o'clock. Only a few more poems will come, there are so many poets here tonight. Once I’d read five, six, ten poems... nostalgia. Tonight I read twice. Some closing thoughts, thanks, and notes, and already people are saying “looking forward to next week.”

This is it. We are doing something with poetry, and making this city proud with it, and every week it gets better.

Jasin

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Jason Kirin is a nineteen-year-old poet from Pittsburgh. The readings are on Fridays from 6 - 9 pm in Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, PA, at the corner of Forbes and Murray. Jason says, “They are completely open to all. We have had rappers, poets, spoken word(ists?) and last week we had an opera singer. Everyone is welcome -- in fact we encourage everyone, not just poets, but anyone with ears is welcome to come.” Here's one of his poems (in fact, it's his “favorite idyllic poem”):

Raging Hearts

Have we discovered the most recent break in time?
Shallow bankment and thin lines resort to arrogant betrayal
But I know I wait only seconds more to find
Sorrow
Stark
Tears
Dancing upon raging hearts as you lay the splendor upon us
And now, you are in the moonlight --
Baby.

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