August 20 is the deadline to sign up for the online open mic August 23.
Poetry
October 24, 2020
The West Tisbury Library presents an online poetry reading with local poet Amarylis Douglas, Wednesday at 5 p.m.
November 10, 2020
The online reading is scheduled for Nov. 22 and all are welcome to listen and take part, according to an announcement from the West Tisbury Library.
April 6, 2021
Island poets are invited to take part in the April 25 reading.
2009
June 11, 2009
Day’s End on Eel Pond
Sunlight falls through holes in the clouds
spotlighting the marsh grass here and not there,
whitening a sail out on the water, leaving
others in shadow, shining the transom
of the moored cat boat, its bow disappearing.
The bobwhite calls its name without knowing it.
Sparrows and swallows, fussing and twittering.
line up like deacons on the deck railing,
April 9, 2009
Note: The Heath Hen, once a plentiful bird throughout New England, was last seen by James Green in West Tisbury on March 11, 1932.
The Ballad Of Boomin’ Ben
(The Tragic Tale of the Last Heath Hen)
I looked for my lady,
hoped she was near
playing “hard-to-get” games
in the Spring of that year.
I searched and I searched
under brush, by the sea;
April 2, 2009
Take This Poem
Take this poem. No. Really
take it. It belongs to you.
Like anything you read.
It belongs. Like Hawaii’s
swaying palms, weighted
coconuts, rungs tying
the trunk of the tree. All.
Yours for free.
What did you think
your first grade teacher
was giving to you? Letters,
words, a dog with spots,
February 5, 2009
Quansoo Forest
Spiraled, twisted, screwed and swirled,
Knobbed and gnarled, hunched and burled,
Oaken shapes grotesquely curled,
Ever-howling wind has whirled.
From the stump and toward the sky,
Aged sprouts for sunlight vie,
Grapplings limbs are arching high,
Arms of wooden octopi.
Briny gale the ocean blows,
January 29, 2009
A Toast to Rabbie
If a Scot be ripe for toastin’,
If a Scot be fit for praise,
If a Scot stands high above the rest
For the way he spent his days,
Let’s raise a cup now, all about,
And celebrate the cheer
That Rabbie Burns has brought to the world
Now for two hundred, fifty years.
Nay, no poet was ’ere as fecund or fine
