James Foritano, a regular at the library’s “bee-hive poets table,” relaxes after writing haiku on the bike path.
On Tuesday, May 31, eight local poets chalked classical haiku on the sidewalks at various locations, beginning near the Kickstand Cafe and including the Minuteman Bikeway.
“We see so many ads urging us to buy things,” says Miriam Levine, Arlington poet laureate. “These poems are free! Though they have lasted for hundreds of years, they will wash off in the first heavy rain.”
Ome Shushiki’s, who was born in 1668, wrote this one, appropriate since irises are now in bloom:
Dead my old fine hopes
And dry my dreaming but still . . .
Iris, blue each spring.
Writers who have been sharing their poems at drop-in sessions with Levine at the “bee-hive table” on the third floor of Robbins Library, now shared with passersby these wonderful poems translated from the Japanese.
Nancy Gray supplied the colorful chalk and kneeling pads.
Views of poets at work >>
Sept. 20, 2015: Listen in as our poet laureate conducts a class
July 14, 2015: Town’s first poet laureate introduced in her own words
This bit of gently opinionated poetic news was published Wednesday, June 1, 2016.
