By Julia Beauregard
Hometown Weekly Editor
On April 5th, Hale Education welcomed featured poet Queen Hodge to their monthly poetry night. The emcee of poetry night, Will C., warmly welcomed the guest poet to Hale and invited her to participate as the featured poet after being blown away by her works. "When you see royalty, you know it," Will C. told the crowd.
Queen Hodge's poetic repertoire consisted of historical poems ranging from American history to the history of snacks and parodies, which were often paired with music. The featured poet started off her set with a hilarious parody about Donald Trump's lawyer, Joseph Tacopina, which was paired with the music from the song "Corinna, Corinna," by Ray Peterson. The entire crowd erupted in laughter during this parody.
Queen Hodge's set consisted of historical poems about the graham cracker, Hanson's Best Chocolate, and Fig Newtons. The poet shared that she is a very curious person and often finds herself looking into the history of various things, which leads her to write a poem about it. She is able to educate the crowd through her poetry. Her set also included "Fowl Play at the Pentagon" and "The Squirrel and Fiery Cool Ranch Doritos," which were two very humorous pieces that had everyone in stitches.
She read two related poems, "In Pursuit of Nectar," which was about butterflies, and "Fly by Night," which was about moths. The two poems contrasted the two related flying insects and our very different partitions of these creatures.
One of the final poems that she performed was "Poem for Tyre," which was about the death of Tyre Nichols and the oppression of Black people in America. A sorrowful silence consumed the room as Queen Hodge presented this poem. It was starkly different from the previous poems she presented and extremely powerful, as it moved some audience members to tears.
Queen Hodge was applauded for her works and the poetic range that she possessed. The crowd was truly in the presence of poetic royalty at Hale Education.
Queen Hodge is a Boston-born poet who holds a bachelor of science degree in biotechnology from Northeastern University. She is a medical technologist at a major Boston hospital. While her day job is both admirable and impressive, the same can be said about her poetry. The guest poet's work has been selected in multiple contests in Boston, and her work has been published by the National Library of Poetry. Queen Hodge has been writing poetry since 1968. However, to the audience's dismay, she has yet to find the time to publish a poetry collection.
For more information about poetry night, check out Hale's website: https://hale1918.org/
