Ten years ago, the late poet, Mike Amado, sponsored and hosted the first Poetry Showcase in conjunction with the Plymouth Center for the Arts, 39th Annual Juried Art Show on September 23, 2006. Amado was approached by Marsha Hamby of the Guild who was responsible for involving different groups, acts and/or musicians to provide entertainment during the first two week-ends of the annual Show. He offered to put together a poetry reading. About one year earlier, an open-mic had taken shape at at Kiskadee Coffee Company catering mainly to musicians. Months later, Richard Wiley began a new open-mic also at Kiskadee’s, which attracted a younger crowd, and where poetry and spoken word were also welcomed. Wiley moved the venue across the street to Bella Piazza Café for a time and when that venue closed, Sherry Maloney brought the open-mic to The Vine. Although these were mainly music venues Amado attended on a regular basis as a drummer and joined in with the other musicians on his jemba. His experiences in all of these open-mics inspired him to start Poetry: The Art of the Word, which began with that first Poetry Showcase in 2006.
That first program, held under a tent at the Old Training Green in downtown Plymouth included two feature poets, Phillip Hasouris who was the host of the Brockton Library Poetry Series, and Deborah Priestly from Cambridge who ran a weekly poetry venue, called Open Bark, at Out of the Blue Gallery in Cambridge, which she co-owned. He also had three spotlight features of local poets, Rich Wiley, Elizabeth Hanson, and Princess Leah of Cape Cod [Leah Daidoff]. Since the beginning the Showcase organizers have tried to include at least one resident of Plymouth in the program as well as a visual artist.
The second Showcase found three feature poets, Ryk McIntyre from Rhode Island, Lynn Holdsworth from Plymouth, and visual artist Sheila Twyman from Scituate. There were five spotlight features including Ryk’s wife Melissa and Sheila’s husband Roger.
The 2008 program featured Gloria Mindock of Somerville and Timothy Gager of Dedham as the feature poets with 10 spotlight readings. It also marked the beginning and ending of an era. On Sunday April 6, 2008, POETRY:The Art of Words debuted bringing a monthly poetry venue to Plymouth and ten months later, Mike Amado succumbed to end stage kidney disease and passed to the other side on January 2, 2009. It would also be the last reading at the outdoor site as all future readings would be held at the new home of the Annual Show at 11 North St. in downtown Plymouth. In January 2012 a new annual celebration of spoken and visual arts was launched. Visual Inverse pairs visual artists and poets in a program that invites poets to write in response to selected pieces of visual art. These 3 programs, Poetry the Art of Words, Poetry Showcase, and Visual Inverse, collectively, bring more than a dozen poetry events to downtown Plymouth each year so that almost every month of the year, poetry is spoken here. That was much of what Mike Amado envisioned when he first assembled word artists under the tent on the Old Training Green back in 2006.
In the nine previous years the Showcase has welcomed 54 different readers to Showcase, including Plymouth residents Lynn Holdsworth, Chuck Harper, Paul Stone, Shelly Renee, Miriam O’Neal, and Louisa Clerici, as well as visual artists Deb Priestly, Elizabeth Hanson, Sheila Twyman, Irene Koronas, Lainie Senenchal, Edward Ted Minchin, and Elizabeth Quinlan.
Sunday September 27, 2015 will mark the 10th Anniversary of The Poetry Showcase as a part of the Plymouth Center for the Arts, 48th Annual Juried Show. This year’s program will begin at 1PM at the Center at 11 North St Plymouth and is open and free to the public. This poetry reading will see the return of three of the poets from the original program, held in 2006. Plymouth resident, poet, visual artist, and musician Elizabeth Hanson, Phillip Hasour, a veteran of the poetry scene in the southeastern area of MA and the former host of the Brockton Poetry Series at the Brockton Library, and our third contributor to the first Poetry Showcase back in 2006 Richard ‘Rich’ Wiley, former Plymouth open-mic host and slam poet.
Appearing at The Showcase for the first time will be former Plymouth resident and freelance writer for the Boston Globe, poet, writer, gardener and blogger, Robert Knox. We’ll also be welcoming, former English teacher and school administrator Moira Linehan, who has had two volumes of poetry published, as well as Seattle native and current teacher at Babson College, Mary Pinard who recently had her first collection of poetry published. Pinard’s essays on poets Lorine Niedecker and Alice Oswald are among other publishing credits. So mark your calendars, for Sunday September 27, 2015 at 1PM, and help us celebrate our 10th anniversary. Come view and admire the fine art of the local visual artists and listen to the spoken art of words. For further information please check out our site at www.ptaow.com.
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