Tipplers, beware! Drunk Poets’ Society is when Lauren Paredes goes to bars, magnetic poetry in hand, looking for poets who don’t know it … yet.
When on vacation in a foreign city, far, far from home, it only takes one familiar thing to make you feel comfortable. Sometimes that thing is “Toes” by the Zac Brown Band, playing inside a historic tavern in the heart of Boston Tourist Country.
“Oh, yay,” Mike, my first tourist partaker, says when he realizes the Bell In Hand has committed to an all-country playlist for the night.
Mike, clad in a red Nebraska Cornhuskers hat and a mild Southern drawl, orders a Long Island and methodically lines up the magnetic words in order to assess his options. When asked what he thinks of Boston so far, he stops arranging them, as if to begin an impassioned rant.
“Well, I’m not a fan of the price of drinks and tobacco up here, that’s for sure. But I like all of the history and the architecture is fucking amazing; so many of these buildings don’t have squared walls, or 90s on the corners.”
This transitory poet is a carpenter where he comes from, so his observations seem genuine. “I also wish there were curse words in here,” he says, frowning. I tell him that I get that a lot, but fear that they would just make it too easy. He finds the word “drunk” and becomes jovial once again.
“It’s okay, because I’ve got somethin’ on my mind with this one.”
He finishes his drink and considers ordering another, noting that our cocktails in the city are the best he’s ever had, despite our “crazy-ass drivers.”
Yet another Rascal Flatts song comes on, and I visibly wince. Mike finishes his poem and laughs at my aversion to his preferred music.
“This poem better be good enough for all of you Boston people.”
