(Photo by flickr.com/PaulSteinJC)

Today we’re hitching a ride back to the city, slipping into a drop-waist dress, grabbing a parasol and lazing across the river on the ferry—and before you can say, “Is anyone actually disappointed by the yearlong delay of the release of Gatsby?” we’ll be on Governors Island for the 7th Annual Jazz Age Lawn Party. Help yourself to live music from Michael Arenella and His Dreamland Orchestra, dancing lessons on a temporary parquet floor, records hand-cranked on a phonograph, vintage portraiture and more twee retro fashions for sale than you could sneeze at through your newly purchased hand-embroidered organic cotton gingham hanky! (But don’t kid yourself—it’s all about the St-Germain cocktails.)

Governors Island, 11am-5pm, $15 for admission, $45 for VIP tickets; information can be found at dreamlandorchestra.com.

One of the adorable participants participates adorably. (Photo: Instagram/PoetrySocietyNY)

"Because I could not stop for death," read one sign for the New York Poetry Festival chalked into the pavement on Governor's Island on Saturday, "I KEPT WALKING."

If you kept walking, you'd run into the festival, sponsored by the Poetry Society of New York, as it stretched across the lawn at Colonels' Row, fenced with white banners and food trucks. In front of each of the three small stages bearing the names "Chumley's," "The Algonquin" and "The White Horse," around 20 attendees sat cross-legged or mermaid-style on blankets.

Those who were not inclined to pay the $5 entrance fee leaned against the fence as a bizarre medley of voices echoed through the space, either floating into ears of passersby or slammed their senses with the extra oomph of the amps.

"Who's your daddy?" screamed one man repeatedly, his beard bristling as his voice magnified across the clearing. Bemused passerby, lured in by his raucous cries, paused at the edge of the field before their faces blanked in the expressive equivalent of a shrug as they strolled on.

"I bring you all, the incandescent beauty of An Incandescent Firefly!" howled an announcer before ushering a petite girl onto the stage. Her soft lyrics melded into the background as a woman on another stage read, "I painted her toes summer indigo on rhinestones. Stars, momma. You could walk on stars forever."

The festival, which is in its second year, boasted poets from magazines, journals and other organizations such as the Poetry Brothel, Underwater New York and MadHat in its lineup for Saturday and Sunday. This year it introduced a new children's festival where kids could play and write in a village of teepees and balloons. Every hour or so, the children could take the stage to read their own words.

But in the meantime the adults raged or waxed nostalgic, made wild gestures or slouched self-consciously, peered over their glasses at neatly written pages or held leaflets at arms length.

"Shut up!" boomed one woman into her mike, enthusiastic or slightly frustrated or both. "Do not try to shout over me while I am reading!"

Another voice, recognizing the outburst for the poetry that it was, droned on, unfazed.

Revelers on the outdoor dance floor at the Jazz Age Lawn Party.

"Why are people all dressed up?” a pig-tailed blonde wearing an oversized baby blue tee asked while tugging on her mother's gray biker shorts.

As masses of sweaty and restless participants from New York City's Brain Tumor Walk waited for their ferry back to Manhattan to empty, they watched in awe as a gaggle of new inhabitants on a considerably more lighthearted pursuit unloaded onto Governor's Island looking like time travelers.

The Observer was there to catch the 7th annual Jazz Age Lawn Party, hosted by Michael Aranella and the Dreamland Orchestra. This Gatsby affair celebrates the Roaring 20's and all of that decade's fashion, cars and Charleston-inspiring melodies.

Sweet tunes blasted from an antique phonograph between live performances and dance lessons. Attendees paid full homage to the Jazz Age and straw hats were everywhere. Ladies donned feathered headbands, long beaded necklaces, drop-waisted dresses, parasols and dark red lipstick. Men sported suspenders, vests, bow ties and knickers. To our surprise most of them pulled it off with a grace rarely seen back on our mother-island.

A woman in a full-length fuchsia dress and flowered head piece in front of us upon entry gasped when a ticket taker stamped a large black inky image of a motorcar on her arm for admittance. “Can you place that under my glove instead?” she asked daintily. Keeping true to the era, she promptly pulled a bottle of rosewater out of her wicker picnic basket and sprayed it on a navy embroidered hanky, gently blotting the smudge off her porcelain skin. There was no 99 cent hand sanitizer a hundred years ago, after all.

While most were head-to-toe committed to the 20's style garb, we were sporting cowboy boots and magenta lipstick, but we thought we'd at least dabble in the fun. Perplexed by the variety of head adornments on the scene, we made our way to the Worth & Worth hat stand where we got a lesson from Brandon Franklin, hatter extraordinaire. Pork pie, fedora, boater—we got schooled. After deciding on a newsboy cap, we gravitated toward the music, carefully skirting picnickers on the way.

There was something about the giant trees canopying the grounds, the old brick buildings lining the manicured lawn, the Lindy Hop taking place on the dance floor and all that jazz. As much we wanted to resist it, we actually felt like we were in the 20’s.

Until we overheard a woman nearby.

“Does anyone know how to tie this?” a barefoot flapper with a tall feathered gold headband bounced around asking anyone wearing a bow tie—a sizable population on this afternoon. As the maroon satin sadly drooped in her hand, man after man shrugged and explained that his own bow tie was a clip-on. After a good ten minutes she found Frank, a 20-year-old who could help.

The flapper dragged Frank over to her spiky-haired companion in khaki cargo pants and white polo. Once the bow tie was assembled a photo was in order.

“Put this on Facebook. Yeah, man,” he said, flashing a sideways peace sign and lifting his Oakleys up to raise one eyebrow for the iPhone lens.

And, just like that, we were jarred right back to the present.