Selected works by the late Phil Hansotia are featured along the Poetry Trail this quarter.
Phiroze ‘Phil’ Hansotia emigrated to the U.S. from India as a newly-minted physician in 1962. He sought further training and had an illustrious career at Marshfield Clinic as a neurologist specializing in sleep disorders and epilepsy. In retirement, he and his wife Marilyn moved to their beloved Door County. Here he returned to his life-long passion for writing of all sorts: poetry, prose, historical accounts and more.
Years ago Phil and Marilyn visited the Robert Frost Poetry Trail in Vermont which spurred the idea to establish a similar experience both at the UW-Stevens Point Campus in Marshfield and here at Newport State Park.
Write On, Door County will host a reading of Phil’s work on Saturday, June 26th at 1pm. Meet at the Poetry Trail trailhead at Lot 1. (In the event of rain, meet at the picnic shelter which accessible from Lot 3.)
Somewhere There
The road goes out to “Somewhere There”.
A ribbon curled, it reaches out to touch the sky
where the lips of horizon meet.
Amber weeds sway to
soft Mancini wind in vast silence.
An occasional monarch flutters by.
Telephone poles stand wistfully
while empty mailboxes beg mail
and pines shake boughs to passersby.
Gray cotton clouds bunch
and gather darkness, telling everyone
something is about to happen.
PHIL HANSOTIA
The Poetry Trail began in 2010 as a joint project of local poetry groups and the Newport Wilderness Society. Since 2016, Write On, Door County has curated and installed the poems found along the trail. Available year-round, the poems and prose change quarterly. Access the trail from Lot 1 (at the Visitor Center).
