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Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry: Chick Magnets
Edited and introduced by Wesley McNair, Maine Poet Laureate
Who would have guessed that today?s poet, Thomas Moore of Brooksville, would run into Tom Brady at a poetry reading -- during the Patriots? first home game, no less?
Chick Magnets by Thomas Moore
It?s the Patriots? home opener and I?m at a poetry opening in Maine. The Pats are playing the Cincinnati Bengals, yet Tom Brady is here at the poetry reading! ?Tom,? I say, ?why aren?t you in Foxborough???Oh,? he says, ?I?ve always liked poetry and I?m making seventy-two mil? so I can do what I want? Coach Belichick isn?t too happy, though.?The poets read about Cranberry Island, mice in bread boxes, dragon-flies, Morocco, eating oysters in Grand Central Station, summer cottages, and, well, you know, the kind of stuff poets write about: heartbreak, and a lot of asters by the side of the road.?This Savory and James is good stuff,? says Tom after the reading. ?Smoother than Bud Light, and being here is a lot easier than throwing passes? ?his left knee twitches and lifts slightly? ?or getting trashed by the Bengals? defense. Plus, these poetry readings are real chick magnets? you and I are the only guys here!?
Take Heart: A Conversation in Poetry is produced in collaboration with the Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. Poem copyright © 2012 Thomas R. Moore. Reprinted from Chet Sawing, Fort Hemlock Press, 2012, by permission of Thomas R. Moore. Questions about submitting to Take Heart may be directed to Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Special Consultant to the Maine Poet Laureate, at mainepoetlaureate@gmail.com or 207-228-8263. Take Heart: Poems from Maine, an anthology collecting the first two years of this column, is now available from Down East Books.