Poetry in motion

The Paul Short Run trip last Thursday and Friday was the first time I was on a JTR bus for this school year. The first two meets, I drove a van to our nearby venues to alleviate the crowding on the bus. Along with so many other things, it was great to be back to this version of normal. A year ago, I would have done anything to complain about the fact that there was no WiFi on the bus, or it was too hot/too cold on the bus, or that the bathroom in the back of the bus smelled, or that it has become increasingly difficult for me to get anything productive done on the bus for any combination of these reasons. Even reading is difficult on the bus for me, although I cannot blame JTR for that one. I think I need to get more powerful reading glasses. On Thursday, on the way down to Pennsylvania, I tried to read and remarkably I was able to knock out about 35 pages of this pretty neat book of poetry. Alert readers might be thinking: “Pete? Poetry? Did I misread that?” And you’d be correct! My reading tastes tend to veer toward non-fiction history and sports books, with some religious titles mixed in there on occasion.

Well, this was not just any old book of poems. This was a book of poems by our own Janelle Solviletti, Marist Running alum, soon-to-be first-time marathoner … and pretty darn good writer! When Janelle was a student at Marist, she contributed to The Mosaic, a collection of Marist-written poetry. Janelle used to share some of her work in college. I’ll be honest. I’m in awe of anyone who can write poetry, and write it well. It is such a different realm of writing that I find it impossible to even fathom. Obviously, I’m biased, but Janelle is really good at this (she was in college, too). Her debut book of poetry is called The Cameo. It’s self-published and it can be purchased on Amazon, which I hastily and gladly did after Nicki Nesi told me about it, last weekend. Please don’t take this as a formal “book review” … my assessment of poetry is probably as nuanced and well-informed as my assessment of fashion trends. And again, I’m obviously biased! So far, my favorite poem is entitled “Brooklyn.” Several of these poems have subtle references to Janelle’s time spent at Marist as a valued and valuable student-athlete in our program, and this one fits into that category. Please! Support Janelle as she gets started in the literary world. Find her book on Amazon and buy it. OK!