A review of OUT OF THE BLUE GALLERY owner Deb Priestly's Poetry collection.

Hey, Buy A Camera-- You Ain't That Ugly- Deb Priestly. ( Out of the Blue Gallery Productions- Prospect St. Cambridge)

This poetry chap by Deb Priestly, ( who runs The Out of the Blue Gallery with Tom Tipton in Cambridge, Ma.) is dedicated to the late Cambridge street character the Rev. Larry Love. Like many university towns, Cambridge has its share of "characters." Just sit at the Au Bon Pain and you may encounter the eloquent and talented panhandler, the muttering academic reject, the drug damaged Punk Rocker, and many others of the cast. Love was a man with a ministry, and he made his home at the 1369 Coffee House, in Central Square Cambridge.
Priestly, a veteran poet on the Cambridge circuit, has penned a collection of poetry that extols this eccentric's virtues. Priestly views him as a good luck charm, a totem of good cheer, when she gets her morning java : " I see him daily/ I hear him sing and laugh/ as he talks about stardom/ I see him daily/and he tells me he is okay/ Because he lives at the coffee shop/ I see him daily/ His brown, smiling face/ and I am happy to see him." In the poem, When You Told me You Were Dying, Love reminds a much younger Priestly of her own mortality: " When you spoke of your eternity/ You remind me, I had one too/ and every day is to be like death/so I could be mindful of my days." I really like chaps like these. They remind me of the minor characters who were part of our community, and contribute to its richness.