My first street poems

I grew up in a family where reading and writing were considered normal human activities. I wrote my first poem when I was five. I have written poetry all my life, and even published a few, in spite of Writer's Marketing Block. My poetry has improved the most in the toughest periods of my life.

In 1995, I lived on a friend's couch for eight months, in depression. During that depression I wrote only one poem. Because I now call couch-surfing being "homeless in denial," I will include that one here -- when I find it. A lot gets lost in the Great Gray Fog.

Finally I became officially homeless. I was fortunate: Seattle has good community health clinics, and after 40 years of undiagnosed and untreated manic depression (bipolar disorder), I was finally diagnosed. I was doubly fortunate: the first time I walked into a homeless shelter was the night a mental health outreach worker was there, and she got my prescription filled. I was triply fortunate: I respond well to Lithium.

Only a week after I began taking Lithium, I was able to push myself into participating in a craft project at Noel House, the homeless women's shelter where I stayed. We were making Halloween cards. This was the first poem I had written in several months.

Now all threatening shadows
open
into warmth and light.

I continued to become increasingly active. I moved from the staffed shelter of Noel House to a self-managed SHARE shelter, and became a member of StreetLife Gallery, a self-managed co-op of homeless and formerly homeless artists.

I was still confident of my writing, but I wanted to do something more visual at the art gallery, so I decided to try something new. I checked out some books from the library on handmade paper and found art, and walking back I "found" this poem.

Creating With Found Objects

Out of Limbo
I come
to find
myself
scattered
across the pavement
I search
creating
with found objects
a life.

In the months to come, poetry would help me recreate a life. I started a writing workshop for homeless and low-income people (who often have a hard time finding, or fitting into, other writing workshops). Many times I saw the same, infinitely rewarding, phenomenon: someone shuffles in with that "gray pavement" face; says that they can't write; starts moving a pen across the paper because this pushy old woman tells them to; something from their heart flows out; they read it out loud; they look around the table and see other people listening; their face transforms, their eyes light up with a sense of self, their body sits up and comes back to life.

The first couple of years of the workshop, I often heard lines like, "Homeless people don't need to be writing poetry! Homeless people need to be out finding a job!" I don't get those comments any more. A number of homeless service organizations have started writing programs and art programs. People noticed that if people are going to recreate our lives, we need our creativity.

Introducing Poetry

I am going to post here a series of poems I wrote while I was homeless; and, I hope, other members of StreetWrites will either post theirs, or allow me to post them.

To open the poetry series, here's the introduction to poetry on my own webpage:

What Is a Poem?

A poem is whatever I, as a writer, persuade you, as a reader, to experience as a poem.

Some readers are convinced all of the time: they will gush equally over Jack Kerouac and every imitator at the neighborhood open mic, as well as Rod McKuen, Hallmark cards, and at least some advertising copy.

Some poetry convinces almost everybody: The Twenty-Third Psalm; Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night"; Eugene Field's "The Duel"; some of the classic haiku, don't yell at me if I forgot your favorite just plug it in here yourself.

Some people will never be convinced by any work unless it is iambic pentameter and rhymes; or it contains a seasonal word; or it refers only to emotion and subjective experience; or it refers only to external, objective experience; or an infinite range of other specific criteria.

There is more than one kind of poet in the world because there is more than one kind of reader in the world.

Myself, I am in favor of craftsmanship and working on a poem -- not just spilling my guts on a page and calling it good.

But I don't think any of the technical criteria in the world will save you if you haven't got any guts in there at all. There has to be some heart, soul, insight, or feeling to spark a poem, to make it worth writing and worth reading -- and that is the essence of what reaches up and grabs a reader, what makes someone say, "That's a poem."

I am content if at least some of the readers in the world respond to me. If twenty people tell me "I can't make head or tails of this", I'll sweat over a re-write. If ten people cry because they did understand me, and ten others are still scratching their heads -- then I know the audience that I speak to.

I hope it's you.