On a bright Saturday morning earlier this summer, stretched across a blocked-off street in front of the historic Hays County Courthouse, flowers abounded and a string of portable cabanas showcased vendors who were offering anything from hand-crocheted hats to poems crafted on a vintage typewriter by a man who only goes by the name, Derrick.
The typewriter? “It's a WWII-era Navy issue,” which he got at a sun dance (an Indigenous people’s event not the film festival), in 2022, he said. For a poem, he asks a little about the person making the request and types on small manila-colored cards, and then, with a final flourish, takes a leaf-shaped stamp and places that image on the bottom of the poem. His favorite poem is one he calls “Willows,” and he writes poetry to make people feel better, he said.
At another booth, a vendor offers flowers. Two young women, Angel Ratcliffe and Aendrea Verdi soon have their arms filled with summer’s bounty of blooms.
