An award-winning, full-length play with music filled with the poetry of the Eastern Shore of Virginia. Robert P. Arthur weaves fragments of conversations and traditional melodies to portray the love and heartbreak of its watermen and women--the love of the sea, a mother for a child, a man for a woman.
ROBERT ARTHUR'S EASTERN SHORE by Robert P. Arthur, twice nominated for Virginia's Poet Laureate: The book includes 4 one-act plays, a selection of his award-winning poems, and "Hymn to the Chesapeake," a play with music. The culture of the Eastern Shore watermen and waterwomen has long been threatened by the erosion of winds off the Chesapeake Bay and a dwindling supply of crabs and "ersters" to be harvested. These poems and plays celebrate that life and allow us, to share the triumph and the pain of finding one's livelihood and reason for being in an environment that is both beautiful and unforgiving.
