Unique Event And Wedding Entertainment

My name is Bill Keys. People tell me what they’d like a poem about, I engage them in conversation, then compose a poem for them on my hundred year old typewriter. I started playing with this process twenty years ago, in Autumn of 2001. What started out as a fun thing to offer my social life, became my full-time profession in 2010. In just this past year alone (before the pandemic) I provided poetry magic at Neil Patrick Harris’s Halloween party, the hundredth anniversary of The New York Daily News, four nights at the Bae Bar (Top Of Rockefeller Center), The New York Botanical Gardens, as well as weddings and private parties through out New York City, Austin TX, Washington DC, Mendocino, CA, and Chicago.

I provide not only a personalized poem for guests, very often to be framed later, but the whole process is entertainment for those waiting their turn or simply intrigued . Conversations between me and guests are interesting, amusing, and sweetly personal. Onlookers chat with each other while I type, and when I’m finished hush up and listen as I recite the poem. The very spectacle of a well dressed man typing away on a hundred year old typewriter provides a delightful atmosphere. It is relaxed, personal, and warmly entertaining.

100th Anniversary of the New York Daily News

Unique Entertainment for all occasions

These folks let me write about anything. I love the photo of it. I didn’t have my phone with me, so couldn’t spell check. #Paia #thepoemguy #typewriterpoet

He wanted a poem for his girl. She loves sex and surfing. She’s a force. #paia #thepoemguy #typewriterpoet #thingstodomaui

It doesn't look impressive, but it's my all time favorite spot: Baldwin Ave and Hana Highway. Most of my favorite poems I composed right here. I've got five more weeks to soak it up. #thepoemguy #paia #typewriterpoet

Classically I am a terirlbe speller. My first writing teacher, Mary Kean, an incredible poet, told me not to worry about it, "It's about the spells not the spelling." I think ever since then I've been fascinated with the notion of a spell: words that alter a person. . Ella is twenty. She is a friend of Katie (see previous poem post). She wanted a poem about breaking free of imposed ideas about how she should live. #paia #thepoemguy #breakingfree

I didn’t bring a typewriter to Maui. However, this machine was left with Levi Decker (on the left) ten years ago when I was last on Maui. I had no way of contacting him here. For several weeks of trying to figure out how to find him online I got fed up. I was feeling particularly certain one day and borrowed a van to go to Baldwin Beach, boasting that he would be the first person I saw. Of course the first person I saw was another person dear to my heart, Sole Weller. She had his number. I called him and less than thirty minutes later this photo was taken. That short and simple sequence of events gave me a feeling of being home I have not felt i a very long time. I mean New York is home, but not for reasons regarding my personal heart as much as my creative heart, they are a bit different. I heard an interview between Terry Gross and Bruce Springsteen where in the context of him talking about his difficulties with anxiety and shyness, she comments on how powerful he is on stage and how people wish they were like him, and he says, "Yeah I know, I wish I were that guy." Being back on the corner of Baldwin and Hana Highway in Paia has revived my love of poetry. I had pretty seriously burned out on the entire endeavor. To the point that the very notion of having to empathize with another stranger in a feel for language made my belly churn. Now I am, once again, in love with poetry. Like never before, actually.

Katie is a bright beaming twenty year old aspiring writer wanting a poem for inspiration. #thepoemguy #paia #maui

I’ve been back in Paia, on Maui. After years of disgruntled resigation to composing poems as a living, the corner of Baldwin Avenue and the Hana Highway has delivered to me joy trenched in the subtlties that make music of words. A joy shared nightly. This is Lana Svirezheva. A beautiful woman and prolific visual artist.

My time ran out on the stream.

Just finished first Sanders organizational meeting in East Harlem. Feeling really good about this campaign. So healthy to have a way to respond to the threats on all I love. Looking forward to more. #organizewithbernie