Hearing The Dizzy Gillespie Sextet’s “All The Things You Are” In The Foodtown
By Christine Potter
Among the red bell peppers that aren’t even organic, Ziplock bags and detergent and cube steak, fake butterscotch chips for holiday baking, and Christmas wrap out way early, this! This hug, this smile, this old friend who didn’t ghost you after all, this Yes. This Yes, of course as unseen nozzles mist the fresh herbs. Really Diz, really Bird, really Slam Stewart on bass. In this shadowless place of milk so homogenized it won’t cottage cheese your coffee for weeks. In this place where everything crinkles in cellophane, happy ghosts blowing joy: Oh, yeah, it’s cool, it’s cool. And then a few days later in the same store: Caravan, “All The Way,” from Blind Dog At St. Dunstan’s: synth, drums, prog rock from 1976, nameable only by total obsessives but sweet as dulce de leche ice cream and the encouraging scent of fresh celery! In a world so well-married to woe that even the wars have to line up and vie for your attention each morning, a complex secret handshake, a compliment on the cool hat you forgot you’d worn. The President of the World flashing a peace sign. Three green lights going home.
Christine Potter ‘s poetry has been curated by Rattle, Kestrel, Third Wednesday, Thimble, Eclectica, The Midwest Quarterly, and Autumn Sky Poetry Daily—and featured by ABC Radio News. She has work forthcoming in The McNeese Review. Her young adult novels, The Bean Books, are published by Evernight Teen, and her third full-length collection of poetry, Unforgetting, Kelsay Books.
4/10 / Meet the Artist with visiting poet-in-residence Tyler Mills / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 6:00 pm EST / Free
4/10 / Poetry Reading with visiting poet-in-residence Tyler Mills + local writer Jennifer Litt / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7:30 pm EST / Free
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omigosh ... just LOVED reading this one (I am a longtime SWWIM admirer) and want to applaud audibly, rather than remotely. The poem did me a power of good!