Everybody Get Together
Community, the Town Square, and Open Air
Flash back to the first Sing Out Loud Festival in St. Augustine, Florida. It was the summer of 2016 and I was invited to coordinate a showcase with nine poets on a September afternoon at the downtown gazebo.
On that day poetic voices and special spoken words echoed from the Gazebo. Words traveling through the microphone, and out of the sound system speakers, into the ears of poetry lovers stretched out on blankets. People walking by also got exposed to a moment or two of poetry. There is no way to escape poetry, when it is performed in a public space. One that day, the art community strutted their stuff to a larger community. It was brilliant in design: Poetry met the masses.
The idea of utilizing the Gazebo for poetry was actually the brain child of Ryan Murphy, the man behind the revitalization of the St. Augustine Amphitheatre and the creation of the Orion Amphitheatre of Huntsville, Alabama. He spearheaded the first Sing Out Loud Festival in 2016. The pitch was to get 200 to 300 bands together to play for free, every Saturday and Sunday in September at the Downtown Gazebo and several downtown St. Augustine locations.
This summer, I have taken great delight in returning to that same gazebo and town square on Thursday’s after work to listened to the free concerts offered by the City of St. Augustine. Their weekly summer concert series features such musical favorites as The Morrow Family Band and slide guitar hero Bill Wharton AKA the Sauce Boss.
On the downtown green, in front of the Gazebo, a strong sense of community is growing stronger. Young, old, tourists, and locals. A diverse mix of people who gather to enjoy picnic dinners and some fresh air.
Remember when mom used to say “Can’t you kids just get along?” I think we are finally staying to get along, thanks to music, and poetry, in public spaces.