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Acoustic Gig
Guitar has provenance:
American women, Baez, Mitchell,
lingered over thrumming strings,
hair flopped in absorption.
Dusk is nearing and at eight o’clock,
in the Farmers’ Arms, it will be
Martha’s first acoustic gig.
A few of evening’s sounds
(shoes loping, late vehicles,
grunts of camaraderie,
the rooks’ low roar from the churchyard)
spill and shuffle down the terrace and the hill,
towards twilight and its expectations.
The prospect takes her breath.
She may some time win cities’ tribute,
but for now, in the terrace, on this hill,
she just anticipates a thrill of sound, a frisson,
leaping from hand to string to hearing,
acoustic guitar in the Farmers,
eleventh of April, two thousand and twelve,
the real thing of it, the joy of gig.
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by Robert Nisbet
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This poem first appeared in Obsessed with Pipework (UK)
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Robert Nisbet.is a Welsh poet whose work has been published in roughly equal measures in Britain and the USA, in the latter case quite regularly in. San Pedro River Review, Red .River Review. and. Panoply, which made him one of its Editor’s Choice Featured Poets in their Fall 2017 issue
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As always, Robert, it is a pleasure to read your work. I enjoy your focus on acoustic music in this poem. All too often acoustic music is neglected.
Thank you, Michael. I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Robert … I enjoyed this poem very much. It brought back Joni Mitchell’s memory of “Hejira,” in 1976. It was jazz … with “Black Crow,” “Coyote,” and “Hejira.” Also her work with Mingus. I think people forget how great some of the people were playing acoustic guitar in the 1960’s and 1970’s. I went to college in Fayette, Mo. during that time. Someone would always bring along a guitar, and we would sing songs out on a road party by the MKT railroad tracks. Thanks for the detail and the memories. Best
Wishes, Alan Yount
I’m glad you liked it, Alan. It sounds as if we may have had very similar college experiences in the 60s.