Mission Hill-inspired poem on display at Mike’s

By Rebeca Oliveira and John Ruch/Gazette Staff

A daily morning stop at Mike’s Donuts at 1524 Tremont St. inspired a Boston Latin School teacher to pen a poem, now on display at Mike’s, about Mission Hill and the Longwood Medical Area.

Joan Gray, an English teacher who lives in Braintree, wrote a poem comparing Mission Hill to Paris’s Montmartre neighborhood, known for its artists and diversity. She recently attended a writing seminar in Belfast, Ireland, and this poem “emerged from that session,” she told the Gazette.

The poem describes common sights and neighborhood landmarks like “a black wrought-iron heart / of a gate frames the sleeping city” and “Eighteen thousand souls / shelter in the shadow of miracles,” and repeats the refrain “Could be Montmartre.”

A framed copy of the poem is on display at Mike’s. Gray said she stops by the local eatery for coffee every morning and donated a copy to the store after owner Maria Winograd liked it.

The current copy is a replacement after the original fell and its glass smashed. Gray replaced it this week.

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