Larry Robin listening to a poetry reading at Fergie’s Pub | Photo: Julien Suaudeau
“This room is filled with poets,” someone observes just before Larry Robin takes the stage at a weekly Moonstone Arts Center reading at Fergie’s Pub. In Song of Philadelphia’s season two conclusion, host Julien Suaudeau brings his mic to record the sound of this now beloved Wednesday night event.
Listen to the final episode of season two of Song of Philadelphia, “Is this loud enough?” on Apple and Spotify.
“I tell people I love the words,” Robin, the former bookseller and longtime director of Moonstone Arts, explains as he introduces the eleven poets who will read. “You can write a 300-page novel, a three-page poem, a three-line haiku. How are you going to make people feel what you feel? See what you see? That’s the magic of poetry.”
Larry Robin in front of Fergie’s Pub, Sansom Street | Photo: Julien Suaudeau
What follows on the podcast is exactly that, the sound of magic produced by Philadelphians wrestling with their city and their memories, and it’s Robin who has given them space to reflect on and sometimes of dream of changing the world. “You have to recognize the world around you and hopefully you come up with a solution,” says Robin, who before taking over his family’s bookstore was a union organizer. “We’re on the verge of a civil war. How do you learn to talk to each other again?”
If you ask the poets interviewed at Fergie’s the answer is, be like Larry. “Amplify other voices.” “His example is his mentorship.” “He doesn’t try to be that person. He just is.” “Forever energetic.” “He loves other people.”
Larry mostly ignores the praise. Listeners are invited to bask in it, a loving tribute to Robin and poetry’s place in the life of a city.
You find every episode of seasons one and two of Song of Philadelphia on Hidden City’s website. Look for more this coming winter as Julien Suaudeau explores how David Lynch invented his cinematic language of fear and strangeness in Philadelphia. And Julien solves a very Philadelphian Lynchian mystery.
