Last night I got to visit with a dear friend. Poet Georgia Popoff – lo these many years ago a fellow office drudge – has become not just a published author (she’s been that for quite a while), but a recognized educator. Her Syracuse release party for the book that she and fellow educator, poet and co-author Quraysh Ali Lansana recently had published was a resounding success – at least by CNY terms.
Our Difficult Sunlight is a book about poetry appreciation, true. But more importantly, it’s a book about helping others reach that appreciation, either as a reader/listener or as someone who yearns to express themselves. These two people share their passion for passion, as it were, in the form of helping others to listen to others, listen to themselves, and express themselves through all forms of poetry.
Let me me the one to break my own terrible secret: I suck at poetry. I have no ear for it, no tongue for it. I don’t understand it and, like most things we don’t understand, I’m just a little bit scared of it.
Let me tell you something else: I’m extremely happy for Georgia, and a tiny bit envious – as well as having a totally unjustified feeling of pride. I did nothing to help her with this book, unless you count staying out of her life for 8 years as “help.” But when we met, she was stuck in what for her heart and soul was a dead end job. I stayed around long enough to see the genesis of her first book, to see her struggling to bring to life something she’d dreamed of. I envy her passion, her drive, and her love for poetry.
My wife, I think, envies her choice of writing partners! Quraysh is smart, educated, funny, personable – and looks damn fine in a suit and tie. Hey, I ain’t blind! Plus, he’s living in Chicago, one of my wife’s favorite cities, so at least if she runs off, I’ll know where to start looking.
Anyway, I’m adding their book to my “recommended” section. Even marketers need a soul.
