by Jessica Gregg
Pennants, Poetry & Art Walks
I wrote about the smut at the Highlandtown Art Walk before my first tour of duty as the artist in residence, hoping to get friends and others excited about the walk. And because it’s just so Baltimore.
The “Evening of Vintage Smut” reading series that occurs outside Rust ‘N Shine was one of my first experiences with the Art Walk. I stood under a Coleman tent in misty rain and listened to prose that was so wrong it was right. There was a fan sticking out of a second story at Rust ‘N Shine and a felt pennant that said “Ice Mine,” which I should have bought.
I was an onlooker that night, checking out the scene, seeing what I had signed up for as an artist in residence, feeling the energy of the community. “Onlooker” is a role I rather readily assume — I am a journalist by trade, so surveying the world around me is a daily occurrence; people watching is my jam.
It’s also what turned me into a poet. I like to collect those little details – the felt pennant, a line of text that Jocelyn Broadwick, the series reader, read that night, the family that shared the sidewalk with me later, carrying their freshly cleaned clothes from the laundromat.
In this way, poems are like crazy quilts —the scraps and bits of daily life we think are extra are in fact the missing buttons we can sew into place and make the verse work. In other words, that felt pennant and that Friday night family will show up somewhere in my work at some point.
So will the “Jesus Es Vida” chimney on Conkling Street. At least that’s what I predicted to my son when he came with me to the Art Walk on July 5. After my soft sell on the smut, he was the one to accompany me on that hot night — not because he was eager for the porn of yesteryear — but because he wanted the sliders from Laughing Pint, which we ate while we looked at the amazing collection of photography and collage from Laura Dodson and LuAnn Zuback.
The theme for the art walk was “Summer Camp” and we screen printed T-shirts with Lorraine Imwold and headed to the Night Owl Gallery, which was still a rainbow delight from Pride Month. Out on Conking, there were more families with laundry hampers, carrying out what must be their Friday night ritual.
It was a quiet beginning to my stint as artist in residence, but all the better for me to sift through the buttons and scraps that I will stitch down into something. I have a book of poetry coming out this summer, “News from this Lonesome City,” and into it creeps quite a bit of Baltimore detail. And I plan to write more poetry in Highlandtown this summer. I can predict how it will take shape, but that might be one of those tempting-fate-gods-laughing kinds of dares. Writing is like that.
So, I will tell you this instead: I will be out and about a lot in Highlandtown through the end of September. Look for me scribbling in a corner at the Laughing Pint or Y: Art or grabbing a pastry at Hoehn’s or Vargas. Feel free to come over and say hi — I spent years working in a noisy newsroom and don’t mind pausing for a chat. For me, this residency is a gift, and I am grateful for every minute I get to write in this neighborhood this summer.
Jessica Gregg is the editor of Baltimore Style magazine and also oversees Baltimore’s Child and Washington Family magazines. She is a Baltimore booster, proud rowhouse dweller, the mother of two teenagers, and an avid poetry reader. Her poetry collection “News from this Lonesome City” will be published this year by Finishing Line Press.