Poetry & Poets

Grace Cavalieri

Grace is Maryland’s Tenth Poet Laureate. She has 21 books and chapbooks of poetry and 26 produced short-form and full-length plays. Her newest poetry publication is Showboat, 2019. Grace founded and still produces "The Poet and the Poem" on public radio, celebrating 43 years on-air in 2019. The show’s recorded at the Library of Congress and transmitted via Pacifica Network. She holds two Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards (1993 & 2013), A Paterson Poetry Prize, a Pen Fiction Award, the Bordighera Award for Poetry, The CPB Silver Metal and received the Associated Writers' Program George Garrett Award for 2013.

1972

John Denver and Cass Elliott sing in concert

Before John Denver crashed his steel peg
into strands of sunshine,
and before Cass Elliott choked on a head of lettuce
her last Caribbean trip,
they sang Leaving on a Jet Plane.
She wrote it and I wondered
why it was so sad,
here she was rich and famous,
though I admit a little fat.
But before she left and he left,
and everyone I knew left,
we sang that song, to keep fear away
and carried
records in the trunk of our car.
Trini Lopez was the rage then
and we kept Trini under cover in the trunk
so wherever we happened
to find ourselves, we could always offer up a dance.
Cass was sad. I'm sure of it. She had cause to be.
That smile was just a mask, and all the rest rehearsal.
I was there that year. I should know.

Grace Cavalieri