Literary Sidewalks

In case you were concerned by the cliffhanger ending of my last post…I’m still alive. I successfully reached the island, where Robin gave me a Hollywood reception under sun-bathed palms. Now that I am here, and have a rudimentary office, allow me to explain a bit about why we moved because I’m both optimistic and arrogant enough to assume you want to know.

There are many reasons we have semi-moved to Key West. The motive almost everyone who transplants here gives is the weather. Three hundred days of sunshine and a tropical climate that has never known frost or snow makes it highly desirable, but that's not number one on our list.  For us it's because the people on this island are…well, different - and so are we. 

 The inhabitants of Key West have tried on several occasions throughout its history to secede from its mother country (and actually did so on April 23, 1982).  The short story about that is they (a) officially seceded (b) declared war on the United States (c) surrendered one minute later, and (d) requested foreign aid. That said, they did not secede when Florida left the Union on January 10, 1861. So, yeah, the island has been known to be a magnet for mavericks, eccentrics, pirates, and those that are just plain "odd." But a common thread to all these groups is that they are fiercely independent and free-minded. Those who know me, or have seen the Indie Author movie, understand why I find this appealing.

And yet the instigating reason for choosing Key West was far less philosophical and more practical. It is the farthest south we can get to by car. I’m not a huge fan of air travel, not too keen on driving either, but there is also an auto train that cuts the trip down by more than half, which is quite nice. Just having three options makes me happy since we are keeping the cabin in "the Valley" and plan to migrate. Am I concerned that the island may be literally underwater in forty years? Not particularly because we won’t be alive to see it. 

What I am embarrassed to admit is that there was another reason for me to move here that I only recently discovered—Key West is a literary Mecca. Unbeknownst to me, this is where writers go to work and live, and have for over a hundred years. I’ve long known that Ernest Hemingway had a home here—still does, only now it’s a museum. He, however, was only one of many. The list is ridiculously long, but notables include (in no particular order) the likes of Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, James Merrill, Richard Wilbur, Tennessee Williams, Thomas McGuane, John Hersey, Alison Lurie, Robert Stone, Judy Blume, Jimmy Buffet, Shel Silverstein, and Truman Capote. 

How I came to learn this common bit of knowledge is odd, and therefore typically Key West. Just this last autumn, I was walking out near the lighthouse on the 900 Block of Whitehead Street. Robin and I were returning from a lovely dinner, when I saw something beneath my feet. Written into the concrete of the sidewalk were words. This wasn’t a child’s scrawl, these letters were carefully inscribed. So, I stopped, and in the light of a late night street lamp, I read a poem by David L. Sloan.  

Who goes to the effort to inscribe literature into a nondescript sidewalk? I was impressed enough to snap the above photo and walked on. The following day on the way to brunch, Robin and I happened upon another bit of seemingly random etched graffiti, this one a distinctly appropriate poem by Eden Brown:

At this point I was more than impressed—I was intrigued. The next day, Robin and I swam at the Casa Marina pier where I found Tennessee Williams swam there every morning and was quoted as saying he wrote best in Key West. At this point I had to investigate, and learned the island was drowning in a legacy of writers. 

I quickly discovered David L. Sloan was a local author by virtue of his many books featured at the city’s bookstores. I purchased Quit Your Job And Move To Key West by Christopher Shultz & David L Sloan just in case there were other things I ought to know about before buying a place on the island. Eden Brown is also a local poet. This led me to discover that the concrete verses were the result of The Key West Sidewalk Poetry Project conducted by the city’s Art in Public Places Board. More than 200 Florida Keys writers submitted poetry, prose, lyrics and haiku, in a contest that granted a cash award and a place in the city’s history. 

It would seem this tiny island at the southernmost point of the continental United States, with it’s tropical climate, ocean breezes, roaming roosters, and creative, quirky, and artistically minded residents, attract writers like Reese's Pieces pull in lost and lonely aliens. And the island has embraced this tendency for writers to settle here, by establishing yearly seminars and other organizations and events. It would seem artists, musicians, and writers are the island’s more respectable mascots. 

I suppose if I had the chance at put words to sidewalk, it would be a simple question posed to me by Robin. “What took us so long to get here?”