Poems by Phone…because sometimes you need a shot of magic
I’ve just read that a new bright blue telephone booth has been installed in Dubuque, Iowa to give callers a direct line to poetry.
It is a year long project set up by a local arts group called Voice Productions. You can choose which poem to listen to as there is a directory to consult, but I hope there’s a random option too. I’d use it to discover what kind of day I was going to have.
Real and visceral, like a Sharon Olds poem with pain and beauty threaded through very ordinary things, the way the light in the hall shines through a half open door, a dried fleck of semen.
Or a Byronic day, big and grand and terribly magnificent but not so easy to understand, although perhaps I pretend I can.
Or an Edward Lear Day when it it’s supposed to be warm and funny, but somehow it goes a bit flat at the end and you’re left thinking that really should have been better…
I love the idea of the poetry phone line.
I also love Dubuque. I visited it one long ago June afternoon to catch a glimpse of the Mississippi and visit The Field of Dreams, the real one where the 1989 film was shot…so, this part of Iowa is creating another piece of magic.
Photo Credits
Top: Charlotte Harrison on Unsplash
Bottom: Universal Studios
2 comments on “Poems by Phone…because sometimes you need a shot of magic”
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BRIDGET WHELAN writer 
How clever. What a novel idea!
It’s lovely – I hope it is well used.