WESTERN SKIES - February 26, 2005

*** SALIDA POETRY FESTIVAL ***

[Sound of street traffic]

ERIC WHITNEY: It's Thursday night in Salida, and Michael Adams and Dale Harris are making the rounds. They wander into Dakota's Bistro downtown. But instead of picking up a menu, they offer one to the couple at the first table they see.

MICHAEL ADAMS: Here's a menu do you have any preference?

WOMEN'S VOICE: I like Dylan Thomas

WHITNEY: The items on Adams' menu aren't for eating though, they're poems.

ADAMS: "The force that through the green fuse drives the flower drives my green age, that blasts the roots of trees is my destroyer...

WHITNEY: This kind of thing is going on at three other restaurants in Salida. It's the kickoff of the fifth annual Sparrows Poetry Festival, and troubadours are wandering all over town, spouting verse.
From February twenty-fourth through the twenty-seventh Adams and his ilk, twenty-six poets in all, invade Salida. Besides springing poetry on unsuspecting diners, they hold performances, host workshops and parties, and just generally bring alive what are often just mysterious words in a book.

ADAMS: When somebody's just presented with poetry on a page, and if you're not familiar with poetry or that poet, you often don't know how to read it .You don't hear the poet's voice, you don't understand his or her rhythms, any of those things, so it helps to hear it.

WHITNEY: Adams, who's from Lafayette, is one of several poets who've come to the Sparrows festival every year for the last five. So has Laurie James, who lives in Salida and sells advertising when she's not scribbling down the words that appear in her head. Both emphasize that Sparrows isn't just a bunch of stale, dry readings of academic verse.

LAURIE JAMES: The poetry festivale is a gathering of poets who are into performance poetry, not, say, a poetry reading, but a poem that is performed. Poetry tends to be too much of an alone thing, and the spoken word of poetry is so important because then it can involve people who aren't poets, but like poetry or love poetry and it really is an entertainment.

WHITNEY: Most of the people who come to Salida for the Sparrows festival already love poetry, many are poets themselves. One of the main reasons the festival is held is so poets can get together and enjoy each others company. But the organizers say plenty of just regular folks enjoy the festival as well, and pony up 10 bucks a pop for poetry performances. Others just stumble upon it, or have it stumble upon them, like this table full of kids eating pizza at Amica's restaurant. Dale Harris swoops in on them and performs her composition, False Spring.

DALE HARRIS: there is premature cheerfullness the nearly spring day. The sun's little yellow toes are poking holes in clouds that didn't know only an hour ago. Winter water begins to warm and flow. The land is a large pan of dough, softly rising, this is a day for new intentions. A day to walk the fields and survey fences. A day to dig and dream, to sort through seeds and plan for summer. It is also a day to put things straight to restack firewood upon the porch. Shakeout rugs and oil the gate. The mother is cleaning too. Great gusts of wind her broom away the dried up leaves of yesterday. Make room for the new. Of course there is no stopping the apricot and the plum. Foolish girls who give themselves to first love, throwing themselves into blossom. Snow could come again and no doubt will. We are all the wiser when it does. False spring can beguile then betray. Never surrender to what I say. Let's hear it for spring.

WHITNEY: For the most part, the restaurant patrons who found poets at their tables were receptive, the poets even picked up a few bucks in tips. Restaurant owner Kat Jackson, of Dakota's Bistro, says only a few people aren't into it, and, over the years, poetry has even become a draw for some diners. She says she's happy to have the poets in her place, and that the festival is good for Salida.

KAT JACKSON: We have such an established reputation as an outdoor recreational place. But when you can broaden your appeal to include other groups of people who may not necessarily not want to do that. Knowing that there is great theatre, and good art galleries, and good performances and good music going on in town gives more people better reasons to come and that is a really good thing.

WHITNEY: The dates for this year's sparrows poetry festival in Salida are February twenty-fourth through the twenty-seventh. You can find a link to more information about it on our website, krcc.org.