Poetry 4 Free

This sum­mer, at the very least, I’ll be errat­i­cal­ly plant­i­ng myself in var­i­ous semi-pop­u­lat­ed places around Cleve­land where there is foot traf­fic with a sign that says “Poet­ry 4 FREE” and a type­writer. I’m hop­ing that folks will stop and ask me for a poem. They give me the sub­ject and I write it for them, right then. They walk away with the poem, and hope­ful­ly I’ve got­ten a bit bet­ter at writ­ing them. If this sounds intrigu­ing to you, you can fol­low @Poetry4Free on Twit­ter to find out where I’ll be.

Many years ago, I read an arti­cle about a pro­fes­sor who ran a sum­mer poet­ry pro­gram for high school stu­dents. One of the things they end­ed up doing was camp­ing out in the town and writ­ing impromp­tu poems for strangers/passerby. I wish I could find the arti­cle. I’m sure it took place on the East Coast, and I keep think­ing Jer­sey. (Help.) I told my friend RA Wash­ing­ton about appro­pri­at­ing this idea around the same time, and, true to form, he’d already been there. Chop­ping out poems for fivers in Pub­lic Square. (My details may be a bit hazy here as well.) When I decid­ed to final­ly get rolling with it, quite recent­ly, I men­tioned the project to my friend Kevin and he imme­di­ate­ly brought up Abi­gail Mott, who has, and per­haps still is, doing basi­cal­ly the same thing.

So this idea isn’t even remote­ly orig­i­nal, but I’m doing it and here’s why.

Because I’m arrogant

I have extreme­ly high self-esteem. I think that folks might actu­al­ly be inter­est­ed in hav­ing a com­plete stranger write them a poem, on the spot. I think that I can do it, and be good at it.

To practice humility

I need to keep my ego reined, so I am giv­ing the poet­ry away; the only copy. If it’s the best poem I’ll ever write, I’ll be let­ting it go with whomev­er request­ed it. I’ll be let­ting go of con­trol for a change. I’m not ask­ing for mon­ey, I’m not even pro­mot­ing myself. I’m still going back and forth on putting my name on the poems I pro­duce.

Because I’m a coward

I rarely do any thing pub­licly because I’m afraid of suck­ing, being ignored, or being dis­missed. This should help me sack up a bit.

To practice writing

I need to write more, and hav­ing some­one else give me a top­ic means that I get to prac­tice with­out feel­ing the guilt that I’m just ego trip­ping. Even though, in most ways, I still think I am.

Hope­ful­ly I’ll see you out there.