Our Lives Are Works of Art

We are fortunate in Toledo to have been and to be the home of incredible poets. And this is a family of artists who stay connected.

Two of our beloved poets have hit some medical difficulties... Bob Phillips, widely known as the Poet Laureate of the East side, and John Dorsey, who has lived in Belle, Missouri for a number of years but who is part of the backbone of Toledo Poetry and returns every year.

Both write graciously of people they knew and loves they lost, the fish that was always going to get away and the day they lost a beloved friend and found love in fried chicken. These are poets who interact with everyday elements in ways that elevate and make the mundane spiritual.

As we take a moment to celebrate these two very accomplished men, let us pick up our pens to find our own exhaultations of common things. Think about the items you interact with everyday, the items in nature you rely on. The stray cat to mew at you as you take trash to curb, the pizza boxes with each person's favorites announced in black marker: Hawaiian, saus/mush, pep.

Write about those common items, revealing how much we rely on them, how we wrap our emotional lives into these artifacts of living.

John Dorsey was last in Toledo on October 8th at the Switchboard (with Bob Phillips)...