Innisfree, Part II

“But I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet; tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.”

William Butler Yeats 

On a cool, sunny Tuesday morning I peer through the window of the Innisfree Poetry Bookstore and Café. The windows are no longer papered over with fine poetry and are now clear and newly washed. There are people inside; the place has finally opened. I hesitate, but then a man stands up, opens the door and says, “Lynn?”

He’s recognized me from my blog picture. I’ve actually found a bookstore and café where everybody (or at least somebody) knows my name. I walk into a small but beautiful space with long narrow counters along the front windows and down the center of the cafe where a person can sit and sip coffee while perusing fine poetry. A shiny new barista’s station sits at the back with a chalkboard listing espresso options. The wooden bookcases are filled with a mouthwatering variety of poetry: Jack Kerouac, Leonard Cohen, an extensive selection of Charles Bukowski, and much, much more. I know I’ll be back again for a more in depth perusal.

The owner’s name is Brian. He’s Irish and has the Irish love of good poetry. He and his wife Kate met and fell in love at a poetry workshop and have had the dream ever since of opening a small poetry bookstore and café. The circuitous route toward this dream included a stint in the Peace Corp, working with Navajo tribes in Arizona and teaching language arts. Now he and Kate have settled in Boulder among friends to raise their two young children. And I find myself standing inside their dream.

Care has been taken with every aspect of the space: sun streams in through tall windows, all manner of good poetry is arranged invitingly on the warm wooden shelves, and they have chosen to serve fair trade coffee roasted by the local company Conscious Coffees, who have their own dream of sustainability and simplicity, delivering their coffee by bicycle in reusable steel cans.

Standing inside this Boulder dream feels good and right. I highly recommend that my vast blog readership check out this fine place on the Hill across the street from the Sink. Sample the good coffee and find some poetry that speaks to your heart—tell 'em Lynn sent you.