SMITHFIELD -- Since its incorporation on Feb. 20, 1731,
Smithfield has lacked a town poet. Until last night, anyway.
With a collective "Aye!" the Town Council closed that gap and placed the
mantle of the muse on the shoulders of Laurence J. Sasso Jr. [It was
actually a plaque, and they placed it in his hands.]
"I've got to get this up front," joked Councilman Alberto J. LaGreca Jr.
"There's no pay for this job."
It was at the urging of Councilman Michael J. Flynn that the council
selected Sasso for the honor. "A tremendous idea for a well-deserving
person," LaGreca said.
Council Chambers
In this room of words
and
wisdom and heat
this room where power
sits down with worry and
debate,
in this place of decisions,
talk and argument,
laughter and solemn proclamations,
sometimes we all must stop and
listen
to the silence between the sentences,
the moments when
we mere men and women
think of the brightly burning stars
that lift our
heads and touch us
as our lives touch other lives
Laurence J. Sasso Jr.
|
Sasso is managing editor of Observer publications, a group of weekly
newspapers that cover northern Rhode Island and is based in Greenville.
He has captured several journalism awards during his career.
The new official bard confessed that at first he hadn't taken Town
Manager Russell R. Marcoux seriously when Marcoux said he wanted Sasso
to produce a poem for last night's occasion.
So, yesterday morning, under what newspaper people call deadline
pressure, Sasso penned a work called, appropriately enough, Council
Chambers.
"Read the poem," LaGreca commanded. "If it's good enough, you'll get the
plaque."
Sasso complied, and got a round of applause for his efforts.
"Let's print that poem up and have it mounted outside the council
chamber," LaGreca said.
"It's not about recognizing this poet," Sasso told the panel as he
accepted the plaque making his appointment official, "but recognizing
the role of poetry in the community. It means a lot to a lot of people,
but in the grind and press of daily life sometimes it gets kept aside
privately. In times of great tragedy, such as West Warwick, it can be a
comfort."
Sasso formerly was poetry editor of the Rhode Islander Magazine, a
now-defunct publication that was carried with The Providence Sunday
Journal.
He won the New England Press Association's 1990 award for best New
England-wide column. The National Newspaper Association presented him
with its National Arts Award in 1989. In 1997, he won first place for
best arts review in the Rhode Island Press Association's annual contest.
He holds bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University
of Rhode Island. He has completed the course work for a PhD degree in
English at the University of Massachusetts.
