Philadelphia street poet has a way with words

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Philadelphia street poet has a way with words

FOX 29's Bill Rohrer has the story.

A few days a week Marshall James Kavanaugh is typing away on his antique Smith-Corona skywriter in Rittenhouse Square.

He is a dream poet for hire. Give him a topic, and a few bucks, and he’ll arrange all the words on paper.

“The most popular is obviously love. That is very popular. A lot of people want poems about cats and dogs, travel, new beginnings,” Kavanaugh tells FOX 29's Bill Rohrer. 

He began writing and working in the park last spring and he says he writes for about twenty people a day. A little more people on the weekends. 

“It has the potential to reach across the divide, or this imagined divide that we have between each other," Kavanaugh explained. "It is not so much about the words or the meaning or the purpose, it is about how it makes us feel. I hope that it is a positive experience. It is a little bit of sunshine in someone’s otherwise dull day.”