You can only get so far with poems on the page. At some point, you must hear them in your own voice, or someone else’s, out loud, in the air, with all of poetry’s cadences and music. At a poetry reading, like the monthly poetry hoots or Beat Night, the voiced poems mesmerize, captivate and remain in your mind long after the event. About so much more than the words, here, Matthew Gallant gives voice to the sensual experience (note the smells, the tastes, the hammered copper of the tables) of being a listener:

Secrets of Wine

After a sip of water mid-poem, her secrets

melded with our toasted sandwiches; images thick as chowder,

her words poured over us like perfect oyster crackers.

As I wrote how the hue of my wine matched

the metal tablecloth hammer-beat ‘round

the square edges, another kind of silence settled

as she shared her love with us, the portrait of an ageless audience.

If I were that microphone stand in front of her,

we would waltz hard through private vineyards,

forging paths where they never were before

toward oaken tables lain among common stones

where we’d drink wine from grapes our own feet mashed,

but the evening was complete before it was over.

Tardy, I sat among strangers in the back of the room

as unlucky number thirty for the open-mic, sipped copper-white wine

with my eyes open and noted afterward that each poet

was equal to half the glass.

- Matthew P. Gallant

Lesley Kimball

"Secrets of Wine” copyright 2006 by Matthew P. Gallant.   As an English teacher at Timberlane Regional High School, he teaches second track freshmen and seniors, coaches winter and spring track and maintains 

his sanity by doing as many poetry readings as possible.  He has been writing poetry and stories since eleventh grade and hopes to get at least one piece accepted for publication before he turns thirty (two years and counting); in the meantime, he continues writing.

Please note: Poems submitted to this column should not exceed nineteen lines.