It felt like entering a novel from the 20’s.
Although the lighting from various hanging bulb lights was dim, the white painted tin ceiling reflects all of it, so the room seemed almost bright. The salle de spectacle at the Casa Del Populo (http://www.casadelpopolo.com) has a white painted tin ceiling. As we walked in, Kimberley Beyea was singing an old-fashioned-sounding jazz tune, while Barry Turner accompanied her on guitar and Matthew Cabana played base.
Heather greeted us dressed in an extraordinary black dress with white polka dots and high heels. Had she worn a wide-brimmed hat and long white gloves, she would have matched my vision of a performer from a fore-gone era.
The room was full of writers and literary aficionados. We sat in small steel stools around mini-round tables and tapped our heels to the trio’s jazz melodies. I recognized several, although if you asked me to say what they were, I couldn’t.
After the band finished their set, there was a short intermission when everyone chatted about how the world works as though we did such things every night. Perhaps the others do.
Then Abby Hagyard introduced Heather as someone who captures “stolen moments to find the right words.”
Then, with courage, Heather read eight poems from her recent collection, Carry on Dancing.
I was blown away. Heather has been working hard on her poetry over the last few years, and it shows. Each poem was so full of heart; it was as if you could imagine the moments she lived as they occurred.
“Sometimes I hold on too tight, sometimes I smother,” says one of the lines in the poem “On Days Like This.” We gasped as the narrative continued.
Heather read and read. Her words shared the real fears of a modern woman, mother and daughter with everyone in the room. We felt her pain, her suffering, her love. With courage, she kept sharing.
As she read the words in the title poem of her collection, we saw how she speaks to herself to make sure that she has the courage to keep creating and sharing.
“Hold your wings high; use glitter glue when required. Carry on Dancing.”
We applauded. Then went home clutching home-made chocolate flowers.
Thanks for a wonderful evening, Heather.
Check out Heather’s poetry for yourself on her blog, http://heathergracestewart.com/. You can enjoy the band this Sunday evening, Mother’s Day at Upstairs, http://www.upstairsjazz.com, beginning at 8:30 p.m.
Thanks for this Tracey. I had planned on being there but I started not feeling well in the late afternoon. Your post help me experience some of it, even if I couldn’t actually be there.
Thank you for this. It made me feel like I was there even though I was in another country. After I read her new book, I expressed to her how I felt that her work had matured but still showed her ability to see the world around her and to draw a word picture about it from her own perspective.
You wrote about this with the class and grace of a bygone era, too! Thank you so much for this, Tracey. I had a wonderful
night and am so pleased that you did, too! xox