I follow writers and poets for inspiration and the sheer pleasure of reading their work. What a grand world we live in, where this is possible, and creative work is so accessible. Apart from a growing group of poetry books next to my reading chair, I can dip a net into the online world at any time and bring to the surface a poem to read and ponder. Such abundance.
Now, I’ll be honest. I don’t cotton to all poetry. In the same way that my taste for reading fiction is uniquely my own, the kind of poetry I enjoy is filtered according to my taste. I’ve always leaned toward poetry of the ordinary—poems written about everyday life. Think Billy Collins, Marie Howe, and Jane Kenyon.
Forty-or-so years ago, I wrote a poem about a man named Joe. Joe wasn’t a real person, but for some reason, my description of him as “Joe, with his dirt-under-the-fingernails hands wrapped around a beer glass” stuck with me all these years.
Recently, I resurrected Joe in a new poem. There was a certain pathos about young Joe, and he’s brought that with him into old age. Like many of us, in his latter years, Joe has decided to abstain from alcohol, so in this new poem, he’s holding a coffee cup instead of a beer glass.
I thought I might share the earlier one here, and contrast Joe-in-the-beer-parlour with the wiser, mellower Joe, but that forty-year-old poem is bad. I mean, really bad. So, I’ll just keep that one to myself and thank it for its service.
The Esso On the Corner Joe, with his dirt-under-the-fingernails hands wrapped around a coffee cup, waiting for a slice of that apple pie he saw in the display case when he came in. Getting dark early, these days. Feels like snow. He’ll eat the pie, push the plate to the side, and nod at the girl behind the counter when she lifts the glass coffee carafe in his direction. They’ll banter while she refills his cup, and he’ll tuck a few loonies under the edge of the saucer before he leaves, heading home to catch the evening news.
I like this version of Joe, and I’m reasonably satisfied with the poem. I might feel different when I reread it in x-number of days, months, or years. That’s how it goes.
One of the gifted poets I follow here on Substack is Kaitlin Curtice at The Liminality Journal. This morning, she offered a prompt: Beyond. She suggested treating the writing flowing from this prompt as a spiritual practice rather than a practical one, but I took it in another direction. Writing poetry is freeing like that.
Prompt Think of the word as a match. Hold it to a pile of kindling—twigs, chips, torn paper. Memory, experience, that orange peel someone left on the kitchen counter. Watch as a tiny flame appears. Blow. Gentle, mind. Wait and see if it’s going become something, or if it’s going to die back and go out. If it looks promising, add more sticks. Don’t work too hard at it. It’ll either burn, or it won’t. Kindling is everywhere. You can try again, or scrap that pile and move on to another. Just be careful. You never know when a spark might ignite a nearby pile of sticks you hadn’t even noticed, and suddenly, multi-coloured flames reach beyond the sky. You just never know.
