Each year we invite our readers to write specific forms of Spoleto-related verse and let us share them with the world. Well, we’re off and running for 2008. First, Cecil Wilson writes a Spoku:

The Spoletians are
here in full force and we cant
find a parking place.

… and then Joy Munoz chips in with some Splimericks…

The Festival of Two Worlds, is the name.
To Charleston, Maestro GianCarlo came.
He sought out our beauty,
And we’ve made it our duty
To never relinquish this fame.

…more after the jump…

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I noticed this morning that G&M Fast & French (98 Broad St.) is promoting its new Spoleto Hours (8 a.m. to 11 p.m., Monday through Saturday), with the stated intent of attracting more of the after-performance crowd.

Which got me thinking: With Dock Street in the midst of restoration and the festival-mainstay chamber music series moved to Memminger, what will be the effect on businesses farther down the peninsula? Dock Street anchored the festival’s southern flank.

In fact, it seems entirely odd to imagine a festival without Dock Street.

Ahoy! Take a video tour of the schooner Amistad over at charleston.net. The Spoleto folks tell us that Freedom Schooner Amistad will be in port through the opening of the opera “Amistad” on Thursday, May 22 … as a dramatic backdrop to the opera. See the opera and see the real ship … well, almost the real ship. It is a reproduction of the 19th century Amistad, which carried slaves and was the the place of a famous slave insurrection and historic court trial, but, as you will see in Geoff’s videos, the schooner is historically accurate apart from a few things (like engines) required by the Coast Guard.