Feeling moved by all the events of April, National Poetry Month? Continue to exercise your muse in May at the historic Bonnet House Museum & Gardens in Fort Lauderdale.
On Saturday, May 3rd and 10th from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m., the tropical, tranquil beauty of Bonnet House provides the perfect setting for poetry workshops, when participants in each session will hear, read and experience verses from around the world and across the ages, and will then create their own expressions through participating in guided exercises and friendly, low-pressure writer’s sessions.
To wit: Workshop leader Rick McKenzie starts the class on the Chickee Bridge, from which you can commune with the swans (pictured). Just so you don’t think the scene’s too cliché for poetry, I’ve included in this post one of my sonnets, inspired by a similar view, which is in my second collection Eve and After, out this late summer from Southern Hum Press. (See below.)
Each class will feature different readings and varied writing opportunities, so you can sign up for both if you’re so inclined. The cost of each class is $10 for members and $12 for non-members. To ensure quality, each session is limited to 10 participants. For registration or more information, please contact Susan Parker at (954) 563-5393 ext. 122 or susanparker@bonnethouse.org. Maybe I’ll see you there 
Bonnet House Museum & Gardens -- 900 North Birch Road, Fort Lauderdale
Open for tours Tues.- Sat. from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.;
Sundays from 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Only Swan
By Jen Karetnick
Waggling wing-feathers like a tongue,
the male urges his solitary clan
away from Taylor Lake, mud-puddle manned
by Canadian geese and their terrible young
who poop, on average, twenty-eight times
a day. On the other shore, great blue heron
honk, blaring as traffic. The swans have gone
walk-about before with clipped limbs, mimes
to ridicule once out of the slime, but the man
who maintains the weeds of near fields herds
back the family, watering the single,
pampered signet. He fears for the dandelions
webbing paved gravel. Mothered and fathered
by lovers, this swan won’t be raised to mingle.
-- from Eve and After, forthcoming from Southern Hum Press |
