Poets with typewriters hit the street

Poets with typewriters hit the street

The sound of tap, tap, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzip drew a crowd this week as poets with typewriters hit the street in downtown Calgary. Of course I was there. Like a bee drawn to honey.

The Pop-Up Poetry event brought together some of the city’s finest poets, including Micheline Maylor, Calgary’s own Poet Laureate 2016-18 who teaches at Mount Royal University. She was joined by three other talented word handlers, colleagues and acclaimed poets; Richard Harrison, Cassy Welburn, Derek Beaulieu.

improv poetry

The whole idea was that passersby could pick a word that they wanted a poem about  and the poets would get busy, on the spot, writing a poem on the typewriter based on that word. Some kind of crazy improv poetry indeed! I marveled at the talent on the typewriter keys as I can’t imagine having to come up with anything worth reading so spontaneously.

a poem about a mail box

My word for poet Richard Harrison was ‘mailbox.’   The typewriter he was using required a bit of extra attention to nudge it  along, but soon enough the keys were flying. In no more than five minutes he wrote this enchanting poem for me.  And then, he read it aloud. Absolutely captivating. Thank you Richard.  Such a gift.

picking the perfect word

The words chosen ranged from the personal to the bizarre.  Above is a photo of Richard Harrison reading the poem he wrote about the word ‘kindness’ aloud to the person who chose this word.

I noticed that while in line, the choice of word generated much discussion, some people changing their word several times before settling on just the right one.  This is what one does in anticipation of a poem written just for them.

line-ups for a poem

It was a most ingenious idea of an event, organized by Mount Royal University, with the intent to feature the Poet Laureate, the power of the written word and bring it to the people.  I spoke with event organizer, Bryan Weismiller, Communications Officer for MRU and he was blown away by the positive response and interest by the people of Calgary. To his delight there was a line-up of people, young and old, waiting for their poems.

When I asked Bryan if he thought there would be more Pop-Up Poetry events, he thought that perhaps the fingers behind the typewriter keys needed to rest up first.

I have the distinct feeling that the poets with typewriters will hit the streets of Calgary in the near future; just follow the sound of the typewriters.

What word would you have picked to have a poem written about?