Memorious.
INTRODUCTION
My formal study of poetry came somewhat late, and in Boston, a city of poets. I had the good fortune of working with Andrea Cohen at the Blacksmith House Poetry Series in Cambridge, a series that my teacher, Gail Mazur had founded thirty years earlier. I took tickets, sold books, turned the lights on and off, and sat in the darkness with poets listening to other poets. Sometimes the well-known poets were on the stage, sometimes they were the ones in the audience listening to first-book poets. There were also memorable tribute readings. We were all in it together, in this magic realm of poetry in a small room that held the history of so many great poets. I learned that poets need one another and learn from one another at all stages of life and career. I learned poetry from listening, from the rhythms of different poets washing over me every Monday night. I learned to contribute. Poetry should be a world where any of us can live.