Some fans of Poetry in Motion are moved by the poems they read in the New York City subways to write to the poets, contacting them through the internet and social media or via the sponsors, the Poetry Society of America and MTA Arts & Design. Here's poet Jim Moore of Minnesota talking about the good wishes he literally walked into on Spring Street during a visit to New York City.
Moore's poem is in a new anthology, The Best of Poetry in Motion: Celebrating 25 Years on Subways and Buses, published by W.W. Norton and edited by PSA executive director Alice Quinn. Moore, Billy Collins, Aracelis Girmay, Major Jackson, Paul Muldoon, Marilyn Nelson, Patrick Phillips, Katha Pollitt and Kevin Young read from the anthology Oct. 25 at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. Several told stories of how grateful fans tracked them down to relay what the subway encounter meant to them.
After “Love in the Ruins,” ran in 2013, Sue Mattison emailed appreciation to Moore and he wrote back to her. She reached out to him again this summer:
Hi, Jim. It's Sue Mattison from Connecticut, your subway poetry fan. I keep the poem about the tablecloth tucked into my calendar holder. It allows me every now and then to come across it as a little gift to myself. Yesterday was one of those times. I sat down, read it, teared up. thought about my mother and all the beautiful tablecloths she had, and how they set the stage(table) for so many loving holidays, special occasions, and every night dinners for my parents, 4 sisters, and me…The memory of the subway, my finding you, and your incredibly generous response remains so lovely in my mind.”
Mattison met Moore face-to-face for the first time at the launch reading. A fourth grade teacher in Darian, CT, she posts quotes from her students' writing around the classroom. "It's important to celebrate words," Mattison said.
More about Poetry in Motion from The Best American Poetry blog:
Happy 25th Birthday Poetry in Motion & video of "Grand Central" by Billy Collins
Catherine Woodard is the author of Opening the Mouth of the Dead, a story in poems recently published by lone goose press in two editions: paperback and limited-edition book art. She helped return Poetry in Motion to the New York City subways and is a vice president of the Poetry Society of America. Her poems have appeared in literary journals, anthologies and CNN online. A former journalist, Woodard chairs an advisory committee for the News Literacy Project.
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