Al's Writing Journal

Power of the spoken word - with digressions, of course.

I sat next to a sweet unassuming girl in one of my undergrad poetry classes. She was not conventionally beautiful, nor did she wear the most flattering clothes. I am sure she had more than one outfit, but if I think back to her dress now, I see her in a long drab skirt, old sneakers, and a loose fitting cardigan; like I said, not the most flattering apparel. She had an oval face and long straight hair, brown to black. For our first exercise, and this was the entry level poetry writing class, so after all the careful analysis of meter and blah blah blah, we were trying our hand, we were to craft a poem about someone, anyone. I wrote a poem about my grandmother's brother. He was a tea vendor in India. That is not a very lucrative or well respected position in society. So, he was on the tail end of ribbing, and his nature was such that he was sensitive to these things, and they got to him. He had already had a heart attach and a stroke before I even knew who he was. One weeknight, after everyone in my home had gone to sleep, the phone rang. It was a long distance call from India. I knew right away that it was from India becasue my parents had not yet lost the habit of yelling on the phone, developed in the seventies and early eighties when yelling was necessary to be heard over the bad lines. Now, I think people have just become hard of hearing from all the yelling so that they actually need to yell. Anyway, I digress, as I often do. This particular call was from my grandmother's brother. He had called becasue he wanted to see America, and he wanted my dad to fly him here. So what did my dad say...sure, I'll buy you a ticket. Crazy people. So this strange little man shows up at our home some time later. My dad had suffered a heart attack, and so we had a little electronic blood pressure measuring device. One day we came to measuring this funny old man's BP - 220/195. Holy s***! This guy should be dead. That is a quote from not me but our family physician. One of my good firends, also my age, a senior in high school, had his grandfather in town. So my friend, his father, his grandfather, me, and my granduncle, set off in a minivan to see Niagra Falls. From Chicago that is not a short drive. It turned out to be a hilarious trip. I learned that my granduncle used to play sports, and this man, all 5'2" 100lbs. of him was trying to give me weight lifting advice (I played high school football). It was comical seeing him simulating the proper form for doing squats, he would do the whole thing, facial expressions of extreme exertion and all. My friends dad asked him if he had soiled himself, and I saw him laugh for the first time. He was with us for maybe two months. When he left, he cried, and told us that he had never lived in such peace, that my mother was sweet and caring, and that he was forever thankful, he would never forget. We also measured his BP before he left. 150/90.

He returned to India, vending tea, and the rest. He asked me to send pictures of our trip, he wanted to show everyone. By then School had started, and I didn't get around to it before news came that he had suffered another heart attack, and died. Returning to his life, and all the things that had gotten to him before wre just too much for him. I really wish I had sent those pictures. So when I got to college, I wrote a poem about him. It was alright.

We had to sit in a large circle, there were about twenty five students, and read our poetry out loud. We went around the circle. Some people wrote about how close they were with their twin, using images of the womb and what not. A guy even wrote about his husky, its not a person he informed us, thanks guy. Then it was the turn of this unlikely, unassuming girl next to me to read her poem. When she started reading, the world simply melted into her voice. She wrote of her mother, I know that her poem was good writing. But she could have read the telephone directory and taken you to a new dimension. She was soft spoken yet confident of her images. And when she had finished the class sat there quietly. But more than that, my mind was quiet. Her poem seemed to just linger there and everyone was trying to hold on to that fleeting feeling. It was consuming.

Now I have to follow that act? So i simply asked, "Can she read my poem too?" Everyone laughed, but I know they wanted her to.