Break Out Your Dancing Shoes, Poetic Pairings Are Coming

Lisa Vihos, Stoneboat's poetry and arts editor, reporting here:

I have been long fascinated by the way in which poetry, when spoken aloud (as opposed to read in silence from the printed page) is in fact a form of theater. This hit me upside the head a few years back when I staged a reading from my then-new chapbook, The Accidental Present, and instead of me droning on reading poem after poem, I had my friends and neighbors read the majority of poems in my stead. I cast my poems in the voices of people of all ages and walks of life, and the result was pretty nearly breathtaking. Seriously, it was very cool. Even people who had not come to Paradigm coffeehouse that night for poetry looked up from their laptops to listen.

Poetry is drama, comedy, and tragedy all rolled into one. They don't call it the "oral tradition" for nuthin'. You know, "spoken word." We must speak it, share it, converse it. We should do more to raise our voices together more often to explore and unravel what poetry has to tell us.

Hence, the idea was born to create "Poetic Pairings: How Poetry Speaks," in celebration of National Poetry Month.

Come to the Rocca Meeting Room at Mead Public Library in Sheboygan on Monday, April 25 for an evening of engaging poetic pairings. We'll gather at 6:15 for refreshments and then the reading will begin promptly at 6:30. Think of it as "Dancing with the Stars," but without the glittery, low-necked dresses and high-heeled dance shoes.

You will hear from ten different members of the community, including a pastor, a professor, a peace and justice activist, several teachers, and Sheboygan's own mayor, Mike Vandersteen. These individuals will be paired with ten local poets. And the pairs are:

Corey Andreasen and Leighanne Metter-Jensen
Janet Ross and John Sierpinski
Leslie Laster and Sylvia Cavanaugh
Jim Kettler and Jean Biegun (read by Lisa Vihos)
Jim Hollister and Karl Elder
Romy Uceda and Gerald Bertsch
Carol Dussault and Maryann Hurtt
Xia Vue Yang and Jean Tobin
Tricia Marton and Marilyn Zelke-Windau
Mike Vandersteen and Kathryn Gahl. 

Poems by Maya Angelou, Gabriela Mistral, Pablo Neruda, Marge Piercy, Gary Snyder, and others will be read by the community members in tandem with a local poet, highlighting the ways that poetry allows us to enter into a greater conversation about our place in the world.

Do not, I repeat, do not miss this!

The event is free and refreshments will be served. Oh, I already mentioned refreshments. Anyway, see you next Monday at Mead Public Library. Bring dancing shoes. You know, just in case you feel so good from the poetry that you end up dancing.