Writing ‘On the Spot’ Poems for People in the Street
(Photo © Susie Clevenger 2013.)
What is the poem
you would like to write,
if you wanted to write
a poem? Tell me,
and I’ll write it for you.
What’s it about?
Should it rhyme
or don’t you mind?
Do you want it funny?
Sad? Political? Romantic?
Sad? Political? Romantic?
Is it for someone special,
or to keep for yourself?
Do you want it to tell
a story? OK – now you
tell me the story please.
Questions I used to ask.
Then I’d listen hard,
so as to reflect them back
to themselves; so that always
they knew it as their poem.
Theirs … and mine.
One copy for them,
one for me. Their joy,
seizing them unexpectedly,
One copy for them,
one for me. Their joy,
seizing them unexpectedly,
I shared too.
******
My friend Jennie Fraine,
who started this and taught me,
******
My friend Jennie Fraine,
who started this and taught me,
had it as her business.
Never really stopped,
just varied it.
Valentines Day poems
in a big department store.
(She had to dress posh.)
Stalls at Sunday markets
all over the State.
all over the State.
A social history, collected
from the little towns
along a railway line
in a region she grew up in,
making a poetry map.
Taking it to kids.
A book of poems created
for teenage schoolgirls,
with a shiny red cover:
called ‘Sexy Guys Kissing’.
And sometimes at festivals
a whole gang of us
each labelled ‘Poet’,
actually accosting people,
offering our wares.
******
******
I see this young woman
now, at her booth in the street,
industriously writing poems.
She loves her work, I know,
and her customers love it too.
Sexy Guys Kissing, and all that stuff.© Jennie Fraine 1989-92.
Written in response to Susie Clevenger's prompt for April 2020 ~ Day 2: Taking it to the Streets at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.
Jennie's in Victoria, I'm in far northern NSW, about 1,700 km away – and while I was in the middle of writing this, suddenly she phoned out of the blue. Don't you love those 'coincidences'?
It takes an especially empathetic person to write poems for other people.
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your ‘question and answer’ poem, Rosemary. I’ve never seen a poet who wrote poems for other people on the street, only artists painting portraits on the street. A great idea. I write poems in greetings cards for family members and close friends. I love the idea of:
ReplyDelete‘A social history, collected
from the little towns
along a railway line
in a region she grew up in,
making a poetry map.’
And yes, I love those 'coincidences', especially during this pandemic, when magic moments are welcome!
I sent Jennie the link to this poem, and received this by email in reply:
ReplyDelete'I went to comment but got stopped when I needed a password for blogger.
So what I said was that I am still up to my old tricks – on the Ghan for its 90th anniversary last year, wandering around Morocco, Spain, France, Italy and the Netherlands on trains and buses in 2018, a few local gigs last year too …
Thanks for being a fellow experimentalist! 😊'
[For those who don't know:
The Ghan is an Australian passenger train service between the cities of Adelaide, Alice Springs and Darwin on the Adelaide–Darwin railway. Operated by Journey Beyond Rail Expeditions, it takes 54 hours to travel the 2,979 kilometres with a four-hour stopover in Alice Springs. —Wikipedia.]
Yes!💘 I love such types of coincidences, Rosemary! They are the ones which make us believe in the universe and greater good. Especially resonate with; "Taking it to kids. A book of poems created for teenage schoolgirls." *I dare say there will be revolutions involved and possible*💘
ReplyDeleteI love taking poetry to the streets. It is art as much as a gallery of paintings. I can still remember taking that photo in San Juan... I so enjoyed all those questions you asked. What urgency or melody would come from an instant request for poetry?
ReplyDeleteO Rosemary, I love those street venders, your wares are great. Too bad I left my wallet home. I woulda bought one for the teens, I love learning new things. :)
ReplyDelete..
But Jim, you could write your own to give to those teens!
DeleteExcellent! We were in San Diego Jan 8 to March 11, returning home to Boston just before it seems like the entire world exploded! Every Sunday we went to a very popular farmers' market for fresh California fruits and vegetables...and always, in the middle of the walk way with booths of vendors on either side, sat a middle-aged man in with bright red shoes, a red carnation pinned to his shirt, an orange crate upside down in front of him with a small portable Smith Corona typewriter in front of him....typing poems for people, and for himself. I never thought of it in the way you've written here:
ReplyDelete"A social history, collected
from the little towns
along a railway line
in a region she grew up in,
making a poetry map."
That's really it though, right? Not an "oral history" but an oral history put into poetic words.
I enjoyed this write!
Jennie and I used pen and paper, with a big sheet of carbon paper (which one could get then) to make a copy to keep. Giving the poems away altogether is a nice way to do it too – but because it was Jennie's business and helped her support her two young children when she first started, she had to be proactive about getting work, and needed examples to show to prospective employers (town councils, shops, organisations, festival committees....).
DeleteI think it takes a certain amount of courage and faith, and self-reliance and a heady dose of intuitive skills, to be able to sit/stand and "hawk ones wares" - to spontaneously create poetry, on the streets, for others. It's really quite a beautiful, interactive experience/idea, I would think. And I like how you've been able to offer us a glimpse of what this is like, through your own experience, as well as that of your friend. And the idea of collecting, mapping a journey, not only through the physical, the movement from location to location, but also through culling the stories, much like the traveling bards, story-tellers of older times, is magical. How cool is this?! And serendipity says ... draw on the thought/card and let the universe grant the wish/connection. Just wonderful!
ReplyDelete