The poet in me

Honestly, there’s no poet in me.

Though I’d like to think there is in all of us.

But, I’ve tried to write it before and nothing comes out.  Nothing.

I know nothing about Poetry, the process, what makes something good or not, but I know if I like something.

And this guy named JUSTIN EVANS has written a fine chapbook, Gathering up the Scattered Leaves, that I’d like to share with you.  Justin has agreed to do an interview and just as soon as I get some good questions cooked up–should I ask him if he has three berets or four–he has sweetly agreed to answer them.

Now, I suppose I’m jumping the gun announcing this as he might find my drivel–er–interview questions way below his station and forbid my posting of them.  But, he is married to Becky the Absentminded Housewife, so he must be just crazy enough…

Anyway, what I like about Justin’s poetry is its simplicity and beauty and it doesn’t leave me reaching for the motrin.  I’m sure there are many layers of meaning to his work.  Maybe he’s even buried state secrets there. 

But for those of us who are bit dense in the area of poetry or too impatient to let the rhythm and the words sit in our minds as we probably should before turning the page, this stuff is still good. 

I hope I’m not insulting him–he was a 2005 Pushcart nominee afterall.  I mean his work is plain with all the praise a literalist like me can manage.  Yes I just made up the word literalist, but it works for me, I think (read the post re: my inability to get jokes, realize people are telling jokes not stories, etc).

Anyway, here is one of my favorite Justin Evans poems: (I CAN’T GET THE FORMATTING RIGHT…YIKES…THIS IS NOT WHAT THE POEM LOOKS LIKE IN THE BOOK–JUST NORMAL STANZAS…SORRY JUSTIN)

Pre-Dawn:  Three Sisters

I am awake hours before the sun,                                                                                         

looking at the dark shadow                                                                                                            

that is my mountain.  It’s hulking curve                                                                                

lumbers and shifts slightly                                                                                                             

with my every breath.

Whenever I come back to this place                                                                                         

After years of absence, it is the mountains                                                                                     

that startle me the most, their size                                                                                                 

always shrinking in my mind                                                                                                           

like the old memory of a broken arm.

Though the minutes pass slow                                                                                                      

it is time well spent, waiting                                                                                                          

with the world as it shakes off the night,                                                                                    

small details quietly gathering                                                                                                        

beneath the shirt tails of morning.

Tell me that’s not good…Stay tuned for the interview!