For more than a decade, residents have spent one Saturday a month listening to rhymes, verses, quatrains — and maybe a limerick.
The Saturday Morning Poetry Series began as a small program at the Barnes & Noble Bookstore in Merchants Square. As the stream of regulars grew, the event burst the seams of the space and moved to the James City County Library at 7770 Croaker Road.
This Saturday wraps up the close of the series’ 13th season.
Ed Lull, organizer since the start, has not missed a single event.
The retired navy submariner had always enjoyed writing, but did not find a creative outlet until he moved to Williamsburg for retirement and dove into a beginning poetry workshop at age 65.
Now executive director of the Poetry Society of Virginia – which recently held its conference in Williamsburg last month – he pulls connections to bring poets to speak at the event for an hour on Saturday mornings.
“I have a real good feel of poets in Virginia,” Lull said.
Each poet has 12 minutes to pontificate, and while many have returned for repeat readings over the years, Lull has never scheduled the same poet twice in a season.
They hail from all over the state, Lull said, but most are nearby writers who drive in for the morning. Including former Virginia poet laureates — once four in the same session — they volunteer their time to spreading the poetic word. The group of poets and listeners often goes out to lunch afterward to continue the conversation.
This month’s event was rescheduled from the usual first Saturday of the month, before the series goes on sabbatical for the summer.
The lineup features Lull reading his own work, as well as Vivian Teter, current Virginia Poet Laureate and Williamsburg resident Sofia M. Starnes, former Virginia Poet Laureate Carolyn Foronda and Henry Hart, a poetry professor at the College of William & Mary who is a contender for the honor to be named in July.
The poetry starts at 11 a.m. in the Kitzinger Community Room at the James City County Library.
