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Poet Silvi Alcivar delivers heartfelt words for the restaurant community, St. Supéry Estate and more.
On February 4, St. Supéry Estate invited Poet Silvi Alcivar to their #InJoy at Home Warm Winter Nights virtual tasting to entertain wine lovers from around the country with on-demand poetry that she creates using her signature red Royal typewriter and a selection of fancy paper. Even over Zoom, it was a thrill to watch the magic unfold as she delivered personalized poems dedicated to St. Supéry and for a handful of regular attendees.
St. Supéry Estate has been hosting a series of virtual tastings for the past eleven months with themes varying from sustainable seafood to in-home entertaining. About 80 households tune in each Thursday afternoon to see real-time updates from the vineyard and cellar and to enjoy a cooking demonstration from Estate Chef Tod Kawachi who includes an original recipe ahead of time to pair with the specific wine to be featured that week.
One frequent attendee is Philana Bouvier, Vice President of Business Development for Republic National Distributing Company. Philana tasked Poet Silvi to create a poem dedicated to hospitality workers who have been impacted by COVID-19 and related restaurant closures. Silvi delivered:
a love letter to the hardest hit
for the restaurant and hospitality industry
someday we’ll return
to dining in doors,
not giving second thought
to being seated at community tables, the bustle of brunch a sunday ritual,
small talk with strangers the amuse bouche
we’ve been hungering for, so too the
cacaphony of wine glasses clinking,
old friends laughing, meals marking
important life occasions or just
another evening, another afternoon,
the sommelier recognizing lovebirds
returning for an anniversary,
the children escaping to the lawn,
the chef calling out ready plates, the wait staff unmasked and smiling,
months of being flexible in pandemic changes
paying off, the passion for work never named,
just pivoted, and continuing to serve up
ingenuity and adaptation while we give
deep gratitude for keeping this community
nourished and fed with integrity,
grit, and plates full of
hardworking love.
silvi
2.14.21
from philana & napa valley residents
Silvi just launched a new art installation called “Break Open” in San Francisco’s Secession Art & Design. For this show, Silvi created 100 small pieces, each with a poem carefully placed inside a tiny glass bottle. Each poem begins with “in case of” and ends with “break open” to reveal the second part of the work. (The element that is typed on the scroll in the bottle is also revealed on the back of the piece so you don’t have to open the bottle unless you want to.) You can schedule a visit the gallery or view all of the pieces online.
February 5, 2021