Manor Ink November 2019

County’s first poet laureate visits LMFL
By Emily Ball | Manor Ink
‘I write poetry out of a need to tell
and a need to show and give a story.’
Mark Blackford
Sullivan County Poet Laureate
“I don’t write poetry to make money.
I write poetry because at the end of the
day, it’s something to fall back on,” Mark
Blackford told his audience at a poetry
reading at the Livingston Manor Free
Library on Saturday, Oct. 19.
Mark is the first ever Sullivan County
Poet Laureate. A poet laureate is a poet
who honorarily represents a particular
place or group. Mr. Blackford was appointed
in June as the first person to hold
this position, and he will serve in that
capacity for a term of one year.
The position is supported by the Sullivan
County Library Association, with
grants from the Delaware Valley Arts
Alliance, the Catskill Art Society and
Bethel Woods Center for the Arts. This
summer, Mark read a new poem at Bethel
Woods to open the 50th anniversary of
the Woodstock festival.
At the library’s poetry reading, Mark
told his audience, “Poetry is a means of
FIRST EVER The county’s new poet laureate discusses poetry with listeners
at a reading given at the Livingston Manor Free Library. Emily Ball photo
YOU
capturing an experience or a moment. My
writing is my attempt to make sense of
moments in my life that have come across
and not been able to escape.
“I write poetry out of a need to tell and
a need to show and give a story,” Mr.
Blackford explained.
“I’ve realized a moment will only last
as long as you make it matter. When I
write, I try to make these moments last,
and make them matter because I see them
as needing to.”
Throughout the rest of his yearlong
term, Mark will do readings at other
libraries in Sullivan County and at other
public events.
You were a builder before you hawked
your tools; before your tore yourself down
You were a carpenter – Christlike
with such clarity of sight
You could see sixteen-on-center
and frame whole rooms without measure
Your mother saw so much in you.
She looked toward your future with a telescope
until You snatched it away & plunged it into your arm
& even so she still follows Your wreckage
from island to island; she treads the flood
of Your tempest; her knuckles raw and bloody
from knocking on wood.
Her optimism deserves its own holiday.
Mark Blackford
FEATURES
MANOR INK | NOV. 2019 | 15
TRUE BLUES David Dann holds a copy of Guitar
King, his biography of Michael Bloomfield
that was published in October. Amy Hines photo
Ink editor publishes
Manor Ink’s very own Art & Production
Editor David Dann is just out with a new
book, Guitar King: Michael Bloomfield’s Life
in the Blues.
Published by the University of Texas
Press, the book is promoted as “the first
comprehensive biography of the late, great
Michael Bloomfield.” Bloomfield was an
electric guitar virtuoso who transformed
rock ‘n’ roll in the 1960s and made a lasting
impact on the blues genre.
“Mike Bloomfield was America’s first
great rock guitarist, long before Hendrix,”
Dann said. “Because he’s largely unknown
today, I felt the need to write a comprehensive
biography to let people know
about him.”
Manor Ink student reporter and LMCS
ninth grader Hunter Krause said, “I’m
proud that one of our editors is a professional
writer and that he loves music like
I do.”
Amy Hines