By Aimee Cartier, Associate Producer
Every year for my birthday I hold what we at the Big Joy Project call a poetry salon.
For me, it started years ago completely spontaneously. At a very impromptu birthday party my friends just started reciting poetry to me. I was placed on the couch in a seat of honor, with a purple velvet crown on my head, and those gathered just started reciting poems. Some of them had written things for the occasion about me, or had poems that reminded them of me. Others just stood up and winged it, making something up on the spot. It was all very spontaneous, and likely also the result (and good fortune) of having friends who were poets.
pic by Kai Schreiber
Needless to say, it was the best birthday party I had ever had up until that point, and it inspired me to start a tradition. Now, every year around my birthday I hold what I now call Aimée’s Annual Poetry Salon.
I do it because I love poetry. However, that doesn’t mean I always find time for it in my life. This is my way to assure myself that at least once a year, poetry will have a large and luxurious seat in my day. It often inspires me to write more poetry of my own. But more than anything, it gives me that soul satisfying feeling that reading poems usually does. I love the luxury of reading them aloud, and hearing others do the same. I love the smattering of offerings that people bring, from their favorite poems as a kid, to ones they’ve written for the occasion. And ever since the Big Joy Project has been a part of my life, James Broughton has also made an appearance. Needless to say, this seems just like the kind of occasion that James would love. And the rest of us benefit every year from the words he put down on the page.
This year, one of the last poems recited was this one by James.
What matters
matters
but it doesn’t
Some of the time
everything
matters
Much of the time
nothing
matters
In the long run
both everything
and nothing
matter a lot
You can invite James to your party too. Just search “poem” on our website and you’re bound to find many. And if you decide to host your own— please tell us about it. You can find our suggestions here on our Host a Poetry Salon page.
P.S. You can also download the poem above and print it as a free postcard, our gift to you.