Wearing sunglasses and a hat long after the sun had disappeared behind the horizon, Kevin Chopson walks up to a microphone with a tambourine in his hand and begins to sing.
The interactive performance, which also featured some of Chopson’s original poetry, was designed to at least in some ways surprise the approximately 40 people gathered at Big Trouble Brewing Company in downtown Gallatin on Friday.
“Life can get just so predictable,” Chopson said. “If you come see me give a reading somewhere it will not be what you expect. I’d like people to think of things, whatever they may be, that they’ve never thought of. I want someone to feel something or scratch their head.”
Chopson, who is 68 and lives in Gallatin, has been writing poetry professionally since 2005.
The former educator has had more than 125 poems published during his career with his work appearing in dozens of journals, newspapers and magazines across the United States and around the world in countries like Austria, England, Romania and Thailand.
“I’m an imagistic poet,” Chopson said describing his work. “I’ll present an image, or a series of images, and I want people to take away from that whatever they want to take from that.
“I try to go out into the world and… be really open (about) everything that is happening.”
Earlier this year, the Gallatin City Council named Chopson as the poet laureate for the city.
The ceremonial position is meant to help showcase the arts and inspire others to pursue their creative talents, Mayor Paige Brown said.
“He is very passionate about showcasing the arts, teaching the arts and really living through the arts,” Brown added about Chopson. “I like anything that we can do that showcases someone’s creative talent and I’m very grateful that he is willing to share his talent with the community.”
Along with standard poetry readings, Chopson performs shows that incorporate other elements such as music, props and projections in addition to his writings.
His next reading will take place at Towne Square Records and Comics in downtown Gallatin on Saturday, Dec. 11 from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m.
Chopson said he hopes to hold a poetry reading or show at least once a month at various locations across the city beginning next year.
“I want to fan the flame of poetry and art in general in the community,” Chopson said. “We’ve got a lot of craft work being done, and I don’t want that to go away, but we don’t have any performance art being done here. I want to up the level of the arts here.”
For more information about Kevin Chopson and his work visit www.kevinmarshallchopson.com.
THE PURPLE
By Kevin Marshall Chopson
The purple rests on the horizon
in a fuzzed-out flatline of its own,
a narrow swath above
the just dead sun,
in the movement of the tops of trees –
a static charge between the naked
winter limbs of hackberry,
cottonwood, and oak.
The purple, in a deeper hue,
shows itself on the Bermuda onion,
the eggplant, a storm-primed sky,
and the bruise on a child’s arm,
in the almost black
of the Queen of Night tulip,
and a jagged leaf of Cannabis indica,
in the button made from shell.
The purple is always there –
in the eyes, or just below the skin,
in the lineage of royalty,
soaked into the robe of God,
in the line between what is
and what will be.
Editor’s Note: “The Purple” was originally published in the English Journal in 2008. The poem also appears in Chopson’s first collection “A Hollow Earth,” which was published in 2017 by the Anticus Multitultural Association in Constanta, Romania.
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