Category: Market

When we are set up to offer typewriter poetry at the farmers market, typing custom poems on demand with our vintage typewriters while our customers wait, the most common question we receive is, “How does this work?”

To answer this most frequent of our frequently-asked questions, here is how to buy a custom poem from Charlottesville Poem Store at the farmer’s market.

Step 1
The first step is to find our booth! Don’t worry if we look busy, just come on up and start a conversation.

Step 2
Next, give us a prompt. It can be a person, place, or a memory, whatever is weighing on your heart and mind. You can give us one word or you can give us detailed background for your prompt, it’s your choice.

Step 3
Now it’s time to go enjoy the market while we write your poem! It takes us about five minutes to write each poem. And while we always encourage our customers to go visit the other amazing vendors at the market while waiting for their poems, you’re always welcome to choose a seat in our poetry lounge and relax while we write.

Step 4
Finally, your poem is done! Come on back to our booth so we can read your poem to you, then you decide how much to donate to us.

Poems are typed with vintage typewriters on vintage paper and are suitable for framing. We recommend floating frames for our poems, which is a frame that uses two pieces of glass to hold the poem. We sell two different styles of floating frame at our booth.

We also sell handmade pins and bookmarks featuring famous lines of poetry, and we have beautiful, branded gift packaging available at no extra charge.

Hope to see you for some typewriter poetry at the farmers market soon!

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I’ve been writing poems at the market for three months.

Things are a little different from when I first started. I sit under a tent to keep myself and my machine out of the sun. I write a little faster and more freely, guess that comes with practice and experience. I have floating frames for sale, and Mystery Poems, and some other literary odds and ends.

My favorite change: I have repeat customers now, people who return again and again for poems to mark special occasions.

I’ll be at the Farmer’s Market at Ix every Saturday for the foreseeable future (except I’ll be at the Crozet Arts and Crafts Festival the first weekend of October). I love the market managers and fellow vendors at Farmer’s Market at Ix, and have made many good friends there these past 90-ish days.

If you’re in Charlottesville on a Saturday morning and have an urgent poetry need, stop by and see me.

Laura

Our third Saturday writing poems at the market is in the books! So many poems, so little time, and we found ourselves reluctantly turning away customers as we wrote our last lines of the morning.

We wrote about cellular health, bats, anniversaries, and lovers. And during a brief pause in the action, we sold an owl pin to a very sweet customer.

This was the first truly hot market day of the season and we barely survived without a tent, so it’s time to invest in some shade for sure. New and improved Charlottesville Poem Store digs are on their way!

See you soon,
L&J

We spent a Saturday morning at the farmer’s market writing poems for market-goers. It was a gorgeous morning, chilly to start but we warmed up quickly after the sun crested the top of the tree line.

Our first-ever market customer was…a poet. There is no better way to kick off a business venture than with our brain’s immediate baptism in imposter syndrome neurochemicals.

Her time at the market was short, as she had a nature walk to attend, so when she returned a few minutes after providing her prompt I suggested that she finish the poem with me. Oh, she loved the idea, so she sat at the Royal, took up after my first three stanzas, and closed ‘er out. What a beautiful way to begin this new adventure.