I Remember Poetry
After Joe Brainard
I remember the poetry section of the local library, thick plastic jackets over thin paperbacks.
I remember, in the snowy churchyard, the villagers who had known the poet.
I remember the poet who swapped me a bird’s nest for a book.
I remember “At the going down of the sun”.
I remember, in school, that you put a comma at the end of each line.
I remember the standing ovation for a poet who read in a tent on a beach.
I remember the poet who predicted, to me, the sub-prime mortgage crash.
I remember “The feeling is a jewel like a pearl”.
I remember rusty staples.
I remember the poet whose new glasses kept slipping down during the poetry reading.
I remember the man in the audience who said too loudly: “I’m sorry, but in what way is that a poem?”
I remember a sestina is a nest.
I remember the poet who sucked on a throat sweet before reciting, hoarsely.
I remember the poets replying rapidly to the listserv.
I remember pocket notebooks for memorising poems: light blue with white spiral binding at the top; bright red with black spiral binding down the side.
I remember “Swetnesse of dewe had made it waxe”.
I remember the poet in the cathedral talking about photons.
I remember the poet who queried my use of the word “oblongs”.
I remember a dactyl is a finger.
I remember “coldest corn”.
I remember the poet who won a lot of money to write a book sitting alone in the reading room.
I remember enclosing a cheque.
I remember “These hedgerows, hardly hedgerows”.
I remember the superior paper of American poetry books.
I remember The Chadwyck-Healey English Poetry Full-Text Database.
I remember the dream about the poet who parked a car opposite my house full of second-hand golf equipment.
I remember saying goodbye to the poet at the train station and agreeing that the air smelt like snow.
I remember “Beyond the Dip of Bell —”
I remember an acrostic actually goes down.
I remember the poet with the kitchen clock that played a different bird song on the hour.
I remember the bookshop in the Noughties which still had poetry books for sale at their Eighties cover prices.
I remember the poet who signed my book “Yours with a crap pen”.
I remember pinned-up fireworks poems.
I remember the journalist from the Evening Standard who rang me up to ask about a poet. It was a new experience for both of us.
I remember “Waves that sway themselves in rest”.
I remember the poet who counted aloud on a car journey until we saw another magpie.
I remember the poet reading in a language I didn’t know, fingers fluttering.
I remember “Follow now the beetles hum”.
I remember the Computer Science teacher who belonged to the British Haiku Society, and the haiku he wrote about bicycles in the rain.
I remember “I whispered, ‘I am too young’”.
I remember a caesura is a cut, like a caesarian.
I remember the faded brown pages of Poetry of the Thirties, printed in the Sixties.
I remember the poet who abruptly left the pub to get away from the other poet.
I remember the pastries that were available to the poetry competition judges.
I remember the poet who told me exactly what the poem meant.
I remember “Sliced carrot pleased him well”.
I remember a sonnet is a little sound.
I remember The Nation’s Favourite Poem.
I remember the first time I saw a poet reading from their phone, thumbing through the lines.
I remember crossing out poems in the school booklet because we weren’t doing them.
I remember “Bean green over blue”.
I remember the poetry editor who said of a rival: “We must crush them.”
I remember the poet who paused mid-reading to savour the word “ontologically”.
I remember the poet who was sarcastic about skiing holidays to the festival organiser.
I remember finding rhymes.
I remember fridge poetry, but not fridge poems.
I remember the poet stuck on a bus texting about what it meant to send a text saying “I am here”.
I remember “Fire-fangled feathers dangle down”.
NOTES
Rusty staples: markers of age in two senses.
Lovely and so relatable. 👍