In 2013 we featured a writeup about the poetry libraries sponsored by Parachute Literary Arts, which “celebrates poetry in Coney Island and strives to make poetry available to Coney Island’s neighborhood. Parachute Literary Arts believes poetry, like a parachute, can be a lifesaving tool, hence the name. In pursuit of our mission, we enrich our historic community in three ways: through creative writing workshops, a literary arts festival and innovative poetry collaborations, such as poetry libraries and audio installations.”
Step right up to hear poetry on the Wonder Wheel (Richard Eagan, mc’s).
This spring they hosted an engaging fundraiser which featured poets sharing intimate readings of their work in a landmark setting–cars on the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island.
Amber Atiya, Penny Arcade, Brenda Coultas, Patricia Spear Jones, Ian Dreiblatt, Jen Fitzgerald, Matthea Harvey, Brenda Iijima, Tyehemba Jess, Amy King, Lynn Melnick, Edwin Torres, Wanda Phipps and teen poets from Parachute Literary Arts’ poetry workshops are among the writers who participated.
Amanda Deutch, director of Parachute Literary Arts, wrote up this reflection of the event:
Around 100 people came to attend Poem-a-Rama. We had students from Parachute Literary Arts’ poetry workshops read along with established New York poets. The students: Maya Sanders, Gavrielle McIntosh and Imani Nooks were incredible and read on stage below the Wonder Wheel along with poets and Parachute Workshop leaders: Patricia Spears Jones and Lynn Melnick. We had 15 poets reading poetry on the Wonder Wheel. At around 9 pm, a fog rolled in and made it all even more surreal.
There was a poetry making station in front of the animatronic Zoltar where people could type or handwrite their own poems.
My inspiration [for this event] is manifold. Coney Island is a great source of inspiration for me personally because of my family roots (my mother, grandmother and uncle lived on West 29th street) and on the everyday as well. As a poet and a curator, I am interested in how writers are influenced by a place. As the director and curator of Parachute Literary Arts, I am always searching for ways to engage new audiences in poetry as well as respond to Coney Island. Poetry on the Wonder Wheel is a natural way to have site-specific readings in response to Coney Island. Coney Island has been a source of inspiration for centuries for artists and poets from Walt Whitman to ee cummings, to Muriel Rukeyser and Vito Acconci. I am interested in how to create poetry events that engage the viewer, the audience more experientially so that they are coaxed out of being a passive listener and invited to engage more directly with the work. In this case, poetry joins the soundscape of Coney Island: the sound of the hi-striker, the waves, the music and one can take it in more organically. My hope is that for days to come the words will wash over people.
Additionally, this was a fundraiser for Parachute Literary Arts’ poetry libraries. In a city, in a state, a country, where schools are cutting funding for the arts, bookstores are closing, libraries are struggling, we stood in an amusement park in Coney Island listening to poets read as a fundraiser for literary programs. This event created an amazing chance for the student poets from Parachute Literary Arts’ workshops to read their poems and to meet published poets. Maya Sanders met Edwin Torres after she got off stage from reading her poems, “Hello Superstar” and “Oreo.” He gave her a signed copy of his book. Maya said she didn’t know she was a writer before attending Parachute Literary Art’s poetry workshops. Now she is meeting poets whose work she read in the poetry library and hopefully soon come of her work will be published. The event was truly about experiencing poetry all around us. Plus there was keylime pie!
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