I knew this. But it came home to me again at my book launch for What the Country Wrought, my new collection.
Fellow authors, Tom Mitchell and Marina Richie, read first to the enthusiastic crowd that had gathered. It was obvious we had a responsive, connected audience.
As I shared poems about family, active shooters, and strong women, the expressions on the individual faces showed me the connection between their experiences and feelings and mine. Nodding heads and vigorous applause cemented the notion my perception was right on.
At the break, one person told me the poem “Questions I Wish I’d Asked My Father” struck her and she would be talking with her older brother, asking him family questions so she’d be able to tell those stories to the younger generation.
When the reading concluded, Linda Mitchell came over to me. We’d known each other from the fitness center and other poetry readings. She said, “I have something for you—to help you remember your mama.” She told me she didn’t know why she’d carried this object around for a long time, but now she wanted to give it to me. Linda opened her fingers and there in her palm lay a buffalo nickel. I gasped as she put it in my hand.
In my poem “Five & Dime Memories” I talk about my mom slipping me a buffalo nickel to play the jukebox at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in the 1950s. The poem moved Linda to gift me the nickel she’d kept in her purse. I was astonished and touched by her generosity.
The poem, how it moved her to decide to part with that nickel, Linda’s kindness, our conversation, my gratitude—transformed our relationship. And now we have a new bond.
And it occurs to me, we poets write to connect to our inner thoughts, our feelings, to nature, and to humanity. Poetry draws humans closer. It is a gift to us writers as well as to our readers and the world.
~ xoA ~
heyannis 