Seaside Poetry Series Wraps Up

Catch it while you can: The last of the summer’s free Poetry Marathon gatherings is Sunday, when at least seven poets will read from their work starting at 5:30 p.m. at the East Hampton Town Marine Museum. The museum, on Bluff Road in Amagansett, will be open for touring at 5, and refreshments will be served at a reception afterward.

The readers include Carole Stone, Rosalind Brenner, Walter Donway, Pauline Yeats, Carolyn Bistrian, and Daniel Hays. Joining them will be Dee Slavutin of Springs, who last year took over the marathon from the duo who ran it for many years, Sylvia Chavkin and Bebe Antell. She not only took it over, she raised the money to save it.

“The East End light and landscape inspire more than painters,” Ms. Slavutin said in a release. “Poets, too, claim this inspirational source. If you miss this program you’re losing the last chance this summer to enjoy great poetry in our own backyard.”

Below is one of her new poems, “A Summer Ditty.”

Let me eat the purple and the green,

even if it seems unseemly.

I’m hungry for the taste of leaves,

to wipe my mouth on my sleeve.

Then, push off on pedal to the shore

and ask the sky to give me more.

Watch the gull strut and poke

the salted clam properly soaked.

To delight at sighting an umbrella

still cobbed with webs from the cellar.

Tap my toes in briny foam,

explore the shore, free to roam.

Oh July, July, July, July,

it is to you, I owe this high.