FreeWrights Peer Review™

Hello all

My wife Donna and I hav just returned from a hectic but jam-packed 2-week visit to the UK during which I was part of a "World Poetry Night" in Liverpool, arranged by Merseyside poet Jim Bennett and the Poetry Kit list.

At the Fly in the Loaf, Liverpool, Saturday, 17 October 2009

Nervous, you cross the fancy mosaic threshold of an ex-baker's shop,
nudge past garrulous and muscular young guzzlers, ascend
to the upstairs quiet hushed aerie where the poets gather.

No, it's no longer your city, though the street sign "Baltimore"
hard by the Fly in the Loaf at Hardman and Baltimore Streets
recalls your "other city" all those three thousand miles away. . .

"The Liverpool of America's East Coast" and how Adrian intro'ed
you as "a poet from Philadelphia" ha! and he told of streets
near his Mount Street home: Baltimore and Maryland,

testimony to Liverpool's slavery past. It's no longer Ade's
Liverpool or the slaver's Liverpool. Discursive as ever! Wrap
your mind round that. . . wrap your words round that, Poet!

Muscular words to tell of that evening, arc lamps burning,
sweating, drops of perspiration dot the paper. Now!
Squeeze the words out. Let the people hear. You're here.

Christopher T. George


Not my pics of the Fly in the Loaf but the following give an idea of the venue:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/garstonian/3780110011/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/82024388@N00/2222092133/

http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=%22Fly%20in%20the%20Loaf%22&w=all&s=int

Jim Bennett and other PK poets at the Pier Head, Liverpool. Photographs by Stuart Nunn:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/33118075@N05/?saved=1

Welcome back, Chris.

This is a travelogue to savor. I felt as though I were tagging along with you, though I'd have taken a pint up with me.

My only question is the seemingly redundant quiet hushed.

I like your repeat of muscular.

Allen

Hi Allen

Many thanks for your comments. The "quiet hushed" might seem over-much although I want the contrast with the zoo that was downstairs in the bar. By the way, we could get drinks upstairs... it just wasn't the mayhem that was going on downstairs!

Chris

You've definitely achieved that. The word aerie already had me envisioning a quiet, lofty place.

Allen

Chris,

agree with Allen that you could dropped "quiet" in S1L3.

Think the same for "muscular" in L2

S3L2, might think about changing roads for streets. thinking that street(s) twice so close together just don't work good.

Otherwise, seems a fine and dandy piece of work.

such confidence Chris, I get up to the mic and I want at least three Manhattans Ice Teas. I've got to learn the art. Great poem. I loved it.

sergio