{"id":62232,"date":"2020-06-27T09:48:55","date_gmt":"2020-06-27T13:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/?p=62232"},"modified":"2020-06-27T09:48:55","modified_gmt":"2020-06-27T13:48:55","slug":"shirley-may","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/shirley-may\/","title":{"rendered":"Shirley May"},"content":{"rendered":"

I knew of Shirley after she knew me.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first time she heard me read.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A poet with great beauty in her words<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

and <\/span>agape<\/span> in her heart<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

she works more jobs in one week<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

than I have in a year.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She told me, much <\/span>later,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

that she would always hold an open mic slot open<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

for <\/span>me<\/span> every month. Just in case.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Shirley is a <\/span>stirrer<\/span> of emotions,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

among the kids she coaches.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Young Identity<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not so much her baby,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

as a collective of her equals<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

no high <\/span>piety<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

no talking down<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Only raising up.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A <\/span>phenomenal woman<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

among so many others.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Writes her heart across the page,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sparks fire in the hearts of youth,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

gives light to the stage<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I knew of Shirley after she knew me. The first time she heard me read.\u00a0 A poet with great beauty in her words\u00a0 and agape in her heart\u00a0 she works more jobs in one week\u00a0 than I have in a year.\u00a0 She told me, much…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1449,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1449"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62232"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62357,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62232\/revisions\/62357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}