Alone Together

We gather together in Coffee shops, Pub back rooms, Theater spaces art galleries sometimes even living rooms to speak verse to listening ears. It's what we live for, we wordsmiths. We find ourselves in the undulating gaze of an audience, validate our art on the mics and stages of venues as much as we do the Pages of books and magazines.

The stages are quiet now.

We find ourselves asking if a poem, unspoken, in a closed book, in an isolated room, is still a poem?

VerseFirst is trying an experiment. To invite poets to read for an audience, they can neither see nor hear. I'm inviting poets to write and perform poems on a theme each week that will be broadcast into the ears of hundreds individually, rather than hundreds all at once. We will start small. But.

If it works, we will invite more poets to the virtual mic.

Culminating in weekly poetry session open to all, with poets across the world contributing performances, writing for and to each of us shut-in at home.

We have no choice in isolation.

No choice but be alone in this, for the moment.

But at least we can be alone together