Eastern Shore poet and writer Robert P. Arthur will perform his “Hymn to the Chesapeake” April 15th at 7:00 pm. The performance will take place at the historic Cokesbury Church, 13 Market St in Onancock.
The Chesapeake region has inspired and nurtured humanity for millennia. Long before the crossing of the Mayflower to this region, native Americans lived in harmony with the bounty of the land and seascape. Pirates, settlers, presidents, inventors, artists, poets, writers, musicians, farmers, fishermen, immigrants, people seeking refuge, livelihood, homestead, a way of life, their place.
Robert P. Arthur may be the finest poet ever to target the Eastern Shore of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay. Growing up in the small town of Melfa, he absorbed Eastern Shore language, culture, and bloodline. He says that knowledge of the water and people, storms at sea and sinking islands was “thrust” upon him; but leaving the shore as often as he did left him a preservationist at heart–this book his edifice. Into these poems he has poured not only himself but also half-forgotten towns, unpredictable stretches of water, watermen and waterwomen, oyster wars, moonshiners, and pirates, as well as sea grasses, water fowl, the photography of A. Aubrey Bodine and voices of the bay not his own.
So so sad I missed this — I do hope he will do this again!