Free Poetry for Shakespeare

The Cleve­land Pub­lic Library asked me to come do Poet­ry 4 Free in the East­man Read­ing Gar­den on a cou­ple of dates this sum­mer as part of their cel­e­bra­tion of the Fol­ger Shake­speare Library First Folio exhib­it.

I had fun — it’s been a cou­ple of years since I was down­town writ­ing poet­ry on the fly for folks, but I pret­ty much took right back to it. I wrote 11 Shake­speare-inspired poems in 2 hours. Folks could either give me a favorite pas­sage, or pick from a few that I had select­ed.

Por ejem­p­lo:

Some folks had no idea who Shake­speare was, and oth­ers relat­ed hor­ri­fied anec­dotes from col­lege. A few peo­ple just grabbed a quote and took off with­out let­ting me write a poem for them. Every­body seemed like they were hav­ing a good time.