Though the session was mandatory, it felt more social, and LJ Erdinger conducted it in that manner.
Poetry Night at the Clavenger Memory Care Villa.
The small group of residents were encouraged to suggest their own favorite poems, and recite them or read them themselves if they could.
Mostly it was LJ, behaving like a guest activities leader, not the geriatric cognitive therapy PhD candidate that he was, reading aloud, trying to encourage participation and retention.
Mattie Balencia always brought a worn copy of the 23rd Psalm, which she had retained from childhood, Darlene Okinabi always asked LJ to read I Sing the Body Electric, and Aurora Bailey bounced between Frost and Angelou, sometimes interjecting a not-quite accurate, random Angelou line in the middle of LJ’s read of Frost’s Acquainted with the Night.
Gerard and Buck sat in the circle, unenthused, unengaged, and generally unwilling to participate.
LJ had gotten Buck going with a Bukowski piece, though when LJ said the name Bukowski out loud, Mattie had proclaimed “He was a filthy man,” and pouted, refusing to recite her psalm.
“Gerard, do you have any suggestion for us tonight?”
Gerard would usually answer “No thank you,” to this question, and LJ would go down a list from a compilation of the Greatest Poets of the 20th Century.
Tonight, Gerard wiped spittle from his lips and asked, “ What makes a poem… a poem?”
LJ almost dropped the book.
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