Photo courtesy of Pexels: Cheese, Crackers and Fruit by Lorena Villarreal

Good evening, everyone

Today is the last event before we go on a two-week break, we will be back with a Quadrille on July 8. This is also when we celebrate the anniversary of dVerse Poets Pub.

Sanaa here (aka adashofsunny) delighted to host Open Link Night today and Live edition on Saturday.

This is a live edition, but we will only have one opportunity to join on Saturday at 10 AM New York Time. The session will be on Google Meet!

You can link up one poem of your choice down below or write to the optional mini prompt which we are offering today.

Please click on the link below to join us on Saturday:

https://meet.google.com/eiy-uvwr-vkn

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Now for the Optional Mini prompt, which is “Sidewalk.” Consider where the sidewalk ends as Silverstein does in his poem below.

If you live near downtown, there might be a sidewalk packed with people in business attire headed to the small bistros, cafes and other eateries.

You may also use the image of a sidewalk and create a contrast between the world of adults with the world of children, where the sidewalk ends.

As inspiration consider, the metaphors “peppermint wind,” “asphalt flowers,” and “chalk-white arrows” in the poem and see where they lead you. The aim here is to write the first thing that comes to mind.

Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
and before the street begins,
and there the grass grows soft and white,
and there the sun burns crimson bright,
and there the moon-bird rests from his flight
to cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
and the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
we shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow
and watch where the chalk-white arrows go
to the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we’ll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
and we’ll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
for the children, they mark, and the children, they know,
the place where the sidewalk ends.

In this poem, Shel Silverstein describes and conjures a place which is relatively different from anything we know in our own, real world. We might productively analyze ‘Where the Sidewalk Ends’ alongside the lyrics of The Beatles’ ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’, with its tangerine trees and marmalade skies.

Similarly, ‘peppermint wind’ conjures not only the freshness and coolness of the breeze, but it also evokes a wind that we can almost taste!

Part of the genius of ‘Where the Sidewalk Ends’ is Silverstein’s ability to engage our imaginative senses – all of them, not just sight – so that we feel we, too, are losing ourselves in this magical world found ‘where the sidewalk ends’.

When you have linked up the poem you can read and comment as usual, and you are welcome to join us at the live session at 10 AM New York Time.