Moonstone Poetry @ Brandywine Workshop
728 S. Broad Street.
Sunday March 30 – 4pm
Memorial and Tribute to C. Natale Peditto
C. Natale Peditto was born and raised in South Jersey and resided in Philadelphia for nearly 20 years. In the early 1980s, he was actively involved in the local poetry scene, as a writer, performer, editor and co-founder of the Open Mouth Poetry series. His stories, essays and poetry have appeared in various literary publications, including Painted Bride Quarterly, Home Planet News, VIA-Voices in Italian Americana, Chiron Review, Rain Taxi Review of Books, and New Review of Literature. He was the editor/publisher of Heat Press and lived in Los Angeles.
Tribute to C. Natale Peditto by Jeff Rogers – C. Natale Peditto has gone to find a new home, living in the alley of dreams. They say we make our own hell. If that’s so then it stands to reason that we make our heaven as well. I believe that Chris Peditto not only created his own heaven, but earned his place there, when he wrote his poem “Finale in the Alley: Backstreet Song for Etheridge Knight in Philadelphia.” I’ll justify that claim when I give you the whole poem in a minute here… “I’m moved to write of the dead,” Chris once wrote, “as they are alive and walk among us. Not as memories, but as spirits…” Further on: “It is always for the living to seek meaning. And as artists-that is to say, anyone who goes where the imagination reaches-we are the makers of meaning.”
FINALE IN THE ALLEY
(Backstreet Song for Etheridge Knight in Philadelphia)-C. Natale Peditto
Wine drunk poets & old root doctors diggin in the alley of dreams
Tryin’ t’ find a cure for the world’s long troubles searchin in the alley of dreams
See backstreet dancers & rawhide drummers jammin in the alley of dreams
Hear hum-bone-rattle & rattle-bone-hum dancing in the alley of dreams
We whiff some herb & sip some brew tippin in the alley of dreams
Now you know me & i know you smilin in the alley of dreams
So far from home & on the roam children in the alley of dreams
Go do-whop-diddle & diddle-whop-dee riffin in the alley of dreams
Cold star heaven shines in our hearts lonely in the alley of dreams
Man’s own family gone to find a new home livin in the alley of dreams