Philadelphia's Poetry Ink brings together diverse voices
Poetry Ink brought together diverse voices Sunday at the Arts Bank in Center City.
The topics ranged from love and sex to history and time, but it was all poetry in motion Sunday at the Arts Bank in Center City.
Among the recitals was a graphic short poem by Lamont B. Steptoe, "New Orleans," that described having nonviolent, sexual fun with women in the Big Easy.
"Most people can't pull that off," Sean Lynch, 20, said. "It's so hard to pull off being vulgar in poetry."
Lynch, a student at Rutgers University's Camden campus, said he had been writing poetry for a decade but performed for the first time in a public forum during Sunday's 17th annual Poetry Ink. Lynch said Steptoe inspired him to go public.
Sonia Sánchez, poet laureate of Philadelphia, headlined the seven-hour event, which featured more than 100 poets, including her proteges Jaya Montague and Siduri Beckman.
Sánchez received heavy applause after her performance of "Under a Soprano Sky," during which she said: "I cannot waltz my tongue. Under a soprano sky, a woman sings, lovely as chandeliers."
A professor emeritus at Temple University, Sánchez has received the Robert Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry and the Langston Hughes Poetry Award.
Inspired by a coworker and friend to go public, Deborah Stone read her poem "Hearts Interrupted," about her relationship with a man who lost two of his children and his ex-wife in a fire.
"You will never know how many times you did not see my sorrow, for it was I that was the aberration and she that is real," Stone read.
"I can't believe I'm actually doing this," Stone said off stage after her performance. "It's very personal what I write. I never thought I could share it."
Sunday's Poetry Ink was dedicated to the late Daniel G. Hoffman, a onetime U.S. poet laureate and longtime Swarthmore resident who died last month at 89.
The event also coincided with National Poetry Month.
Organizer Larry Robin, director of the nonprofit Moonstone Arts Center, said Poetry Ink's objective was to get a diverse group of poets together to hear one another.
"Poetry is a very concise art," Robin said. "It triggers an emotion. It reminds you of you."
