Today, these words opened Nicole Brodeur’s column in The Seattle Times:
Seattle City Councilman Nick Licata starts every meeting of the Public Safety, Civil Rights & Arts Committee with a poetry reading.
It’s his attempt to get people to think beyond agendas both paper and personal — and to remember the art of civil communication.
Especially when the topic is as volatile as public safety.
Today’s poem better be a doozy. The Office of Professional Accountability Review Board (OPARB) is to present its annual findings on how Seattle police are doing their jobs.
Someone handed this article to my wife this afternoon… right before she walked into the City Council chambers to read one of her poems to the committee and the assembly.
The person introducing her addressed the crowd of irritable Seattle citizens and said, “I don’t know if you’ve seen today’s paper or not. If you have, let me assure you… this poem IS a doozy.”
Anne made it through the reading with flying colors, and received a warm ovation.
I’m so proud of her.
Hey Jeff, We’re proud of her too. Geoff and Melody.
Nice to know you’re here! Didn’t know they HAD Internet up there in the frozen wastes of Alaska!
What, pray tell, was that doozy of a poem?
Let me see if I can coax Anne into sharing it with us. Or perhaps it’s one that’s published in her book… I’ll let you know.
Aha… it was a poem called “Shade Half Drawn,” and it’s included in Anne’s first published collection: Delicate Machinery Suspended.