Tug-at-your-heartstrings new adult first love story.
What starts as a bet to avoid cleanup duties at her minimum wage cashier job, wins Amelie D'Amico more than she's ever hoped for.
When Ben, a cute customer who always checkouts at her register, fi...
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The store is warm and bright with rows of second-hand books and some new ones in between. The modern lettering and signage indicate different sections on the floor and contrast against the fashionably vintage shelves. I don't need to search for the location of the reading, because a booming male voice carries from the left back corner of the big room. I tiptoe my way around the shelves, following the sounds. My third turn around the stacks lands me in the middle of a small gathering. Ten rows of chairs are set up in a wide aisle, meant for displays of the titles recommended by the bookstore. They are occupied by what looks like twenty or so people, facing away from me. The sign next to the podium reads:
The Poetry of E.E. Cummings, featuring Michael Frober, Ph.D., professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Chicago.
My tiptoeing didn't pay off. Several heads in the audience turn my way, some curious, others frown at my late arrival, and one happy to see me. Ben sits in the first row with a blond waify woman to his left and an empty chair to his right. He ignores the presenter and his explanations and gestures for me to come and sit on the unoccupied chair right next to him? Didn't Linda make it? Am I supposed to sit by him in her place? Then he whispers something into the ear of the blond sitting on his left. She turns and spears me with her full-on smile better placed on a beauty-pageant contestant. She waves me over as well, and I have no choice but shlep over and sit down in the first row with Ben and Linda.
The man whose voice I've heard when I entered the store is explaining that the poem he's about to read was chosen by Mary G., spends a couple of minutes describing what was going on in the poet's life at the time the poem was written. A screen behind him shows its text with no punctuation or capitalization. How can this be a poem? How about rhyming?
Granted, all my exposure to poetry ended in High School, and Shakespeare and "iambic pentameter" are the two things that come to mind when someone mentions poetry. Before I have a chance to focus the poem is over. What was it even about? Nothing is making sense.
"This poem was submitted by Ben L.." The man with the booming voice, introduces the next piece. "I was hoping someone would select this, it's a favorite of mine." The text appears on the screen behind him.
"This poem was written in 1925, and while it brings the feelings of romantic love to our hearts, it is also a fairly graphic description of two people making love, maybe for the first time or when the relationship is still very new." He begins his recitation.
His voice takes on a very different tone from the previous poem I heard. It starts like fresh honey poured out of a jar, oozing slowly and richly over the first two lines. Picking up speed, he pushes on "better" and "more" with explosive "b" and "m" sounds.
My fingers tingle when he reads on about the feel of the spine and the trembling firm-smoothness. By the time he gets to "again and again and again," the rhythm is pounding. The tingling sensation moves to my lips and down to my belly button. My cheeks heat up. "Over the parting flesh," his voice low and husky reverberates in my sternum. "Under me you so quite new" the last words ring in the silence of the room.
