My View of Life on the Dock
Gloucester Lyceum & Sawyer Free Public Library Poetry Without Paper Contest 2019 find out more here
deadline April 30, 2019
Fun fact: Christy Russo, Director of Childrens Services at the library, said that new Teen Librarian Haley created the word cloud for this year’s flyer from winning poems submitted in 2018.
2019 poetry contests for children and teens:
Gloucester Poetry Without Paper Contest co-founded by Christy Russo and John Ronan through Sawyer Free Public Library is now in its 17th year! Submissions are due March 1 – April 30th. Read all about it here: https://sawyerfreelibrary.org/poetry-without-paper-contest/
The deadline for Rockport Poetry’s Paperless Poetry Contest is midnight March 31. Submissions can be sent by email: rockportpoetry@gmail.com. Sharon Chace is Rockport Poet Laureate. Read more here.
Gloucester Lyceum & Sawyer Free Public Library children’s services offers fantastic weekly programming. Zyla the Therapy Dog loves a good book! The next “Sign up to read” or sit with Zyla are January 29th, March 5th and May 14th. Looking ahead: there’s plenty of time to prepare for the annual Poetry Without Paper contest co-founded by Jon Ronan with Christy Russo, Director of Children’s Services. This year, national Poem in Pocket Day falls on April 25, 2019.
John Ronan presents Taking the Train of Singularity South From Midtown on Saturday, April 8, 2:00-3:00pm in the Friend Room. It’s Sponsored by the Gloucester Lyceum and Friends of the Sawyer Free Library.
John Ronan a poet, playwright, journalist and a National Endowment for the
Arts Fellow in Literature has done so much in Gloucester! Here’s a throwback article from 1978 about the Gloucester Broadside, a monthly 10 cent one sheet of quality poetry.
Ronan developed the website resource dedicated to Gloucester poets, Gloucester Poet Laureate, also for Salt and Light: An Anthology of Gloucester Poetry, published spring 2010. He is the host of the Cape Ann TV program, The Writer’s Block. He was pivotal in establishing the library’s annual Poetry without Paper Contest and poetry columns in the Gloucester Daily Times.
Students are encouraged to submit poems to the Gloucester Lyceum & Sawyer Free Public Library’s annual Poetry without Paper contest by April 30th!
April 27 2017 | POEM IN POCKET DAY: It’s free and simple to participate. Carry a Poem. Share a Poem. For more information, search for Poem in Your Pocket Day (PIYP Day) Academy of American Poets (www.poets.org) or New York City’s excellent web site, http://www.NYC.gov/poem. PIYP Day started in NYC in 2002 inspired by the Favorite Poem Project established in 1997 (first events April 1998) by Robert Pinsky, former 3x Poet Laureate of the United States. East Gloucester Elementary School initiated Poem in Pocket Day in 2011 (PTO enrichment).
The Ride of My Life
The signs say sixty
miles an hour, sixty
degree angles, eight
bucks for two minutes,
and Don’t Stand Up!
We pay the eight,
climb in the car.
The Big Guy who draws
down the lap bar
tight as a tourniquet,
says: “Stash the glasses,
the pen in your pocket.
Stuff flies out.”
Cogs catch. The cars
quake, start awkwardly
forward as my wife waves,
safe on West 10th
and others stroll Surf,
Coney Island tourists
not thinking about The Cyclone,
or the comic fate that leads
in the first place to Astroland,
no way not to be
in a roller coaster seat
at the top of the first drop and…
Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod!
Up plummet of guts
plunging down, fist
full of fear in the heart-
sick final mind:
I am not on a metaphor,
I am going to die.
Followed by a slow coast,
an arc of confident calm,
balm of Brooklyn below and…
Ohmygod! Ohmygod! Ohmygod!
Death drop and keister
clench! The easy scream!
…and the balm of Brooklyn below.
Ohmygod! horror, and hope…
Ohmygod! horror, and hope…
Slowly, slack in the lickety split.
Speed evens out
and the sine curve dies,
finally flat
in a fan turn to the ramp.
The Big Guy hovers
above the cars, smiling:
“Second ride’s five.”
-John J. Ronan
Cape Ann TV filmed John Ronan reading this poem, The Ride of My Life
I LOVED the Cyclone and I lost my prescription eyeglasses…and a shoe!
John Ronan’s New Book: Taking the Train of Singularity South from Midtown
The Poetry Society of America recently featured John Ronan’s wonderful civic poetry creed essay January 2017. Book tour events listed http://www.theronan.org/
POET LAUREATE: In Gloucester, MA, the Poet Laureate is dedicated to building community through poetry and encouraging a love of poetry among people of all ages. The honorary post for the City of Gloucester was created in 1998. There have been 4 Poet Laureates: Vincent Ferrini was the City’s first, then John Ronan served from 2008-10, Ruthanne Collinson served 2010-14, and Peter Todd served 2014-15. The Committee for the Arts helps to select a new Poet Laureate.
