Actors make good poets.

Actors make good poets.

Michael O’Heir, a rising young star of several recent Ki Theatre Christmas plays, was a surprise poet at the Poetry Coffeehouse which invited poetry lovers of all ages to come to the stage and read their own or other’s poetry. O’Heir read Walt Whitman’s “Oh Captain, My Captain.” Among other poets answering the invitation to read poetry was Rabbi Carla Theodore who told a charming tale about the uniqueness of her identical twin granddaughters. Another poet, Donna La Pre read several poems from a privately published book she wrote several years ago. Especially entertaining were the original poems of writer-poet Ray Holland of Chester Gap who read several of his favorite poems written since he retired as an air traffic controller and moved to Rappahannock County several years ago. Artist and “one-time poet” Steve Kenny also read his own poems as did Carol Quaintance whose family has lived in Rappahannock County for generations. Well-known “bard of the Blue Ridge” and of Rappnet, Joy Lorien, entertained the group with a number of her own poems, offering humorous and at times poignant insights into nature, life and the adventures of a single working grandmother in the Blue Ridge Mountains which she loves so passionately. Photo by Richard Lykes