Poetry Guild to Feature Jerry Howard January 5th

Jerry Howard, a Key West winter resident for eight years, will be Key West Poetry Guild’s featured poet on Sunday, January 5, almost a year to the day after his debut performance on Jan. 6, 2013. The regular, monthly meeting is set for 7 p.m., upstairs at Blue Heaven. The Guild’s Nance Boylan, a friend of the poet, will moderate.

Howard, who has been president of his family-owned financial investment company for 50 years, divides his time between West Hartford, CT, Charleston, RI and Key West. “Although he is a serious businessman and family man, Jerry’s poetry is insightful, ardent, playful, right on spot and ahead of the current,” Boylan reports. “As well as a poet, Jerry is a painter, golfer and has a great love for the game of tennis.”

As ever, the meeting will also include at least one “lightening round,” where poets in the audience are invited in turn to read a *single original* poem. Depending on attendance, it is sometimes possible to have two or three lightening rounds per evening.

Blue Heaven is located at the corner of Petronia and Thomas streets in Old Town. There is no charge, and poets and listeners alike are welcome. Refreshments are often served and the cash bar is open. Please note that Guild meetings must be cancelled in case of inclement weather, when the restaurant needs warm, dry space in which to serve dinner guests. In that case, the featured poet will appear the following Sunday or be rescheduled later in the Season. Watch newspapers and Eblasts for updates.

“The Guild, however, has not missed a meeting in 38 years, and we’re not going to start now,” vowed longtime member and current co-coordinator J.M. Varela.