"We, Helmsmen"

A few years ago, 1623 Studios Executive Producer Erich Archer asked me to think about producing a poem by Gloucester’s former poet laureate John Ronan. Ronan intended this poem to be a kind of song for the 400th anniversary of this European settlement named “Gloucester.”

But Covid crammed this production - along with many others - into a metaporical file of “ideas that are unimportant in the middle of a pandemic.” But Covid couldn’t stop time. With 2023 upon us, and the vaccine pushing back on the virus’s transmissive superpower, I started looking for images and music to best make Ronan’s poem come to life.

I scrolled through footage that Jon Brysh and I had shot of the White Ellery House and the Schooner Adventure, feeling warmed by those pre-covid days in the city. I prowled around the Cape Ann Museum Fitz Henry Lane Catalog Raissone, which is packed full of Gloucester history, and I thought about Gloucester’s 400 years. Also a brilliant editor, Jon Brysh put it all together. Here’s the video: https://youtu.be/OuDTj9lWAQs