MEETING AT THE MARKET
Yesterday at the Fall Arts & Crafts Market while selling copies of my books I met Jacob, a senior at Irmo High School, who took an interest in my poetry chapbook Time Carries All Things Away. Jacob is a senior, taking a class with poetry and doing his own research. He plans to go into performing arts, and his bright brain will get him there if he has any luck.
Poetry gets a bad rep because it’s either simplistic or inscrutable. If you have an advanced degree in poetry, you may be able to decipher Milton, Yeates, or even Langston Hughes. The ordinary person has to read a while to find meaningful poetry in what is published today. This isn’t meant as criticism, it’s an observation. Poetry, like any branch of knowledge, takes shape in a range of forms.
But coming back to my conversation with Jacob and what got me to thinking. I wrote Time Carries All Things Away because there are things and people I don’t want to give up, even though their time has passed. Moments, some of them long since gone, were life-confirming or life-challenging, and poetry is a way for me to remember them.
That is to say, Time Carries All Things Away is like an album of peak moments and the peak may be heaven ward or hell ward.
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