Do You Need a Poem?

A Writing Experiment

This year for the first time my new husband and I celebrated the Icelandic book flood tradition of Jólabókaflóð. This Christmas Eve we went to breakfast and then to the bookstore. When we arrived home, sat in front of the fire, and read. It was glorious!

It has been something I have wanted to do for more than 30 years. When I was younger, part of my distant family had a similar tradition of going to the local independent bookstore on Christmas Eve. When I heard about it, I thought it was the most amazing thing ever. The arrangement of my life at the time didn’t allow for this new tradition to be folded in.

This year one of the books I purchased is called The Poetry of Strangers: What I Learned Traveling America With a Typewriter by Brain Sonia-Wallace. In the first chapter, Brian describes how he sets up a table and sets a sign that states:

Poetry Store

give me a topic
I’ll write you a poem
pay me what you think it’s worth

In Natalie Goldberg’s iconic writing book Writing Down the Bones, she talks about a Spontaneous Poetry Booth and a similar idea. She requested LOVE not be the topic of the poem she wrote. I have not worked up the nerve to do this in real life yet with a physical booth. I was able to put my spin on it electronically.

As a writer and writing educator, I have gone through several iterations of what my teaching groups look like. One of my experiments was Patreon. In the end, the platform did not have the capabilities for what I wanted my community to have so I moved on to Slack. One of the bonuses I had for different levels of patronage was a poem written by me for the person who pledged. They were great fun to write and I made them look pretty before I sent them.

There may be a time when I find myself with a table and a stack of paper writing poems for people who pass by. Or I could ask you:

Do you need a poem?

Happy wintering!

Tammy