Meet Cy Street SplashHall Poet ~ A Virtual Meet Up

my name is cy bish port street. i was conceived in an earthquake off bainbridge island in the company of sea lions, captain pete and bald eagles. i was born a hundred years and a few days and blocks from the same town square where wild bill hickok killed davis k tutt, jr.. apparently gambling and guns do not mix.

i was raised in the scrub brushes of mesquite and flat plains of dallas, texas. i can still smell my baseball mitt and the black earth of my childhood. i miss my stolen mongoose which accompanied me on countless expeditions through the undeveloped farms scattered like freckles on a sun scorched face.

poetry found me in a public school classroom at an early age. i was listening to a classmate read from euripides, "medea". as her husband's betrayal became evident, i watched a fly land on the teacher's fly swatter. in awe, i wrote the first lines of ignorance and irreverence. the first utterences were as meaningless as television, but i still like to read them, especially to children. i find little people judge less than their taller counterparts.

i owe as much to that fly as i do to so many dead writers. i carry baudelaire's letters with me as a reminder of how blessed my life is. his accounts of burning furniture to stay warm during the parisian winters, the pursuit of his debtors and the state banning of his words are for me inspirations and warnings of the magnitude of what is at stake.

i hold neruda's, memoirs, in the same regard as a jesuit might the bible. there are so many writers i love from the past and a few from the present, i do not have the time or space to cover them all. in simplest terms, it is for them i write. i imagine them looking down, drinks in hands, saying, "street, tell us something we don't know."

finally, i approach poetry as emotional photography. i try to convey what is impossible to see with the naked eye. i try to bring to bear all the modern tools that are available in this age. writing inside of splashhall is one of infinite examples of what is at our fingertips as writers. i am working on visual verse projects, musical interpretations and explorations of new languages.

poetry is bread, let's feed the world.

Visit Cy and read his poetry at SplashHall Poetry forums. You can also hear Cy on the BZoO HomeGrown Radio. Tell him DJ Rg sent you.