www.harborlightnews.comWeek of October 15-21, 2014 Harbor Light Community Newsweekly 9

I have poet friends on speed dial. I tend to need them most in the

fall.I still get stomachaches at the site of store shelves filled with school bus yellow packages of crayons and markers. The smell of certain clean-ing agents takes me right back to that precipice, the front door of the school building, where smells of summer (fresh air, newly mown grass, and lake water) are replaced by powerful cleaning chemicals comingling with

whatever school lunch simmers on the back burner of the school cafeteria kitchen stove. Upon entering the building, sunshine and birdsong was replaced by the buzzing fluorescent that could never fill the dark hallways.

It always took awhile for my senses to adjust.

In the 4th or 5th grade, I felt hopelessly stuck. I wondered if I would survive endless years of a life divided into fifty-five minute increments punctuated by a ringing bell.

On one particularly bad day of middle school, a frustrated and angry teacher snapped at me. “You have no idea how lucky you are to be here,” she said, first addressing me but then looking up at the rest of the stunned class to include them as well. “You are so lucky you are not adults. You have no idea the pressure and the stress. Your parents take care of everything you need. You’re fed and clothed and taught lessons. You just get to sit here and learn. You are free from any real responsi-bility. Oh, but it’s coming.” She waved a finger in my face and then at the class. “It’s coming alright. You have no idea what it is to have real responsibility, to have to run errands. Go to the bank. Pick up dry-cleaning!”

It was here that she lost me. I don’t remember what she was mad about, specifically. And I don’t remember what happened after this impassioned angry speech. But I do think about her words often, particularly the part about picking up the dry-cleaning. As a gangly middle-schooler, I stood before her in my ill fitting scratchy uniform, knee socks sagging, and tried to figure out what about dry-cleaning could be more stressful than being trapped in a classroom controlled by this scream-ing nut of a teacher.

I worked as a personal assistant to help pay for grad school. And every time I had to go to the drycleaner (sometimes twice in one day) I thought of her speech. I still think of her today whenever I have to run by the bank and stop off at the dry- cleaners. And every time I come to the same conclusion: I’d rather be at the dry-cleaners than back there, with her, in that classroom. I’d rather be schlepping someone else’s dirty clothes to and from the dry-cleaners every day. I’d rather have a resume filled with bad jobs.

Maybe it’s memories like these that are cause for the stom-achache that still lingers with me every fall. Or maybe it’s the shorter days that bring darkness a bit earlier. I try to find joy in the color of changing leaves and the promise of the perfect pumpkin. I try and take notice of the beauty in the darkening clouds and water. This is when I turn to poetry.

There is something about poetry that serves a medicinal purpose. Poetry’s concise lines and stanzas snap my shortening attention span awake and pull me from my animal like need to climb beneath the covers and hibernate.

Recently, I reached out to my poet friend Chris Green. His new book, Resume, has hit the bookshelves. Resume is his third book of poetry. He’s also the author of The Sky Over Walgreens (one of my all time favorite books of poetry) and Epiphany School. His poems appear in numerous publications (New York Times, New Letters, Poetry, Conversations Across Boarders, etc). He’s the editor of four anthologies, including Brute Neighbors: Urban Nature Poetry, Prose & Photography, and the forthcom-ing I Remember: A Poem by Chicago Veterans of War. Currently, he teaches in the English Department at DePaul University.

I met Chris in graduate school. And while the other poets and writers argued the legitimacy of their favorite literary he-roes over glasses of whisky. Chris and I bonded over a love of unexpected stories and words. But our true bond was formed through a shared love of peanut M&Ms and ice cream. It was a pleasure to reconnect with my friend and discuss poetry, books, and Ben & Jerry.

EM: When did you first gravitate to poetry? When did you first start writing poems?

Chris Green: I started writing poetry by accident in my early thirties. I was trying to write an essay about one of my grandfathers--after six months, I began to realize that I’d condensed the language so much that many paragraphs were actually poems. I submitted some paragraphs to a poetry contest and won. No one is more surprised than me that I’m a poet. I hated poetry in school—it’s taught like math where poems, like equations, need to be solved. School tends to test art out of us.

EM: Charles Wright, current United States Poet Laureate, de-fined poetry as language that means more and sounds better. How do you define poetry?

CG: I like Wright’s definition. And while I think it’s deadly to begin with meaning or meaningfulness as an intention when you sit down to write a poem, what you write does

tend to inevitably mean something. And sound, sure—there’s a sound-fulness in poetry that you don’t hear in prose. I tend to have different definitions of poetry floating in my head at any given time. Lately, it’s Frost’s idea of poetry as “feats of association.”

EM: As a writer, how did po-etry become your genre? Did you ever feel a pull to write essays, novels?

CG: Any time I try to write an essay or story, I inevita-bly poop out a poem. I wish I could be a rich essayist or novelist, but I’m not. I make tens and tens of dollars as a poet.

EM: You are a professor and have taught for how many years now? How does teaching influence your writing?

CG: I’ve taught for over twenty years. Wow, I’m old. Anyway, teaching keeps me striving. I talk such a big game in the classroom that I find myself perpetually trying to take my own advice. I strive to write great poems and it helps to constantly teach great poets.

EM: How do you introduce poetry to your students? How do you get them beyond that fear of “not getting it”?

CG: I tend to teach poems that are humanly meaningful. And I try to relate the poems to real life. For me, it’s all about keeping poetry friendly. I don’t mean I skip on complex-ity; I just don’t want students thinking that poetry is only and always an academic exercise. I try to teach like Frost tried to write—he said that actuality and intimacy is the greatest aim an artist can have.

EM: How do you balance being a father, a husband, a teacher, and a writer? What is your writing process?

CG: Before I became a father, I wrote most mornings. Simple. And I was one of those people who bragged all over town about how different consistent writing is from occasional writing. But now, but now, there’s only chaos and I write only a morning or two a week. Don’t get me wrong, kids are cuter than poems, but I can be a real bitch if I don’t get a little writing time. So.

EM: Can you work anywhere, coffee shop, kitchen table? Or do you need quiet? Where is a favorite place to work?

CG: A hundred years ago, I needed quiet. But hell, now, I could write a poem mowing the lawn! I have a diner booth in my kitchen, which is where I usually write. If only my kids would bring me a malt once in a while.

EM: Does music influence your writing? If so what kinds and what are you listening to now?

CG: Snug in my diner booth, I prefer music that creates a soothing sound wall between me and the neighbor-boy playing basketball or my kids clamoring for parenting. I love to write to Al Green, Aretha Franklin, The Cure, Lucinda Williams, Kelly Joe Phelps, etc.

EM: What are some of your favorite lines of poetry?

CG: It’s difficult for me to think of lines in isolation. Recently, I came across a great poem by Ted Hughes called “Second Glance at a Jaguar.” Here’s the poem’s second half:

He swipes a lap at the water-trough as he turns,Swiveling the ball of his heel on the polished spot,Showing his belly like a butterfly,At every stride he has to turn a cornerIn himself and correct it. His headIs like the worn-down stump of another whole jaguar,His body is just the engine shoving it, forward,Lifting the air up and shoving on under,The weight of his fangs hanging the mouth open,Bottom jaw combing the ground. A gorged look,Gangster, club-tail lumped along behind gracelessly,He’s wearing himself to heavy ovals,Muttering some mantra, some drum-song of murderTo keep his rage brightening, making his skinIntolerable, spurred by the rosettes, the cain-brands,Wearing the spots off from the inside,Rounding some revenge. Going like a prayer-wheel,The head dragging forward, the body keeping up,The hind legs lagging. He coils, he flourishesThe blackjack tail as if looking for a target,Hurrying through the underworld, soundless.

EM: What new books of poetry are you looking forward to reading?

CG: I hope this doesn’t sound grouchy or dumb, but I’m not aware of any new books at the moment. I recently thought it would be good to read, really read, The Norton Anthol-ogy: Vol. 2 Contemporary Poetry.

EM: What poets/poems do you return to or keep on your bedside table/office desk always?

CG: James Wright, Larry Levis, Norman Dubie, and Raymond Carver.

EM: How does your new book Resume differ from your past books Epiphany School and The Sky Over Walgreens?

CG: In the new book, all of the poems are based on jobs or thoughts of work; whereas, in my first two books, the poems are various--first losses, real loves, cherished dogs, the worries and wonders of being a husband, dad, and son.

EM: Who is your perfect audience? The person/people you write to when you write?

CG: I feel like I should say, “the great dead”! However, my perfect audience is my intelligent and interested friends. I don’t think I write with anyone in particular in mind. Oc-casionally, I picture family members reading this or that poem, but only because I’m worried I might hurt them.

EM: How did you come to write this collection of poems about jobs, the jobless, etc.?

CG: It came as I started worrying that my incredible, kind-hearted, artistic daughters may end up working in cubicles some day…maybe filling out grids, pushing information around. There’s nothing like the daily low-grade ass-kicking that you get in a horrible office job. Anyway, my hopes for my daughters inspired me to poeticize various jobs and evaluate the meaning of work.

EM: What are some of the worst jobs you’ve ever had?

CG: Mainly bad businessy jobs: the poet in khaki pants and stiff shirt. It’s difficult to say what I did, though I did en-joy those Swiss Miss hot chocolate packets (with micro marshmallow pellets) in most break rooms.

EM: Do you still enjoy peanut M&Ms or the occasional bowl of Ben & Jerry’s? Or did you really give up sugar for good?

CG: I was a vegan for a year. The great thing about being a vegan is that you can still eat junk food. I was a Big Fat Vegan. Anyway, today, I’ve eaten bacon, peanut M&Ms, and if all goes right, maybe some Ben & Jerry’s Oatmeal Cookie ice cream before bed.

I don’t have the heart to break it to him but Ben & Jerry discontinued that flavor. Maybe I’ll mention it the next time we talk and I am brave enough to pitch him my Junk Food anthology idea.

Celebrating Words, Literature, Authors, Libraries, Booksellers and Reading!

With special Harbor Light Newspaper LitChat Editor/Columnist Emily Meier, emilym@ncpublish.com

As part of our ongoing efforts to honor reading and writing, “LitChat” will be included in our newspaper on a regular basis. Emily Meier, a writer and reader with deep connections to northern Michigan, is our LitChat editor.

L i t C h a t

Emily Meier and Wally

Quotable

“If you have the words, there’s always a chance that you’ll find the way.” ~ Seamus Heaney

“With poetry, you don’t have to go through a windshield to realize that life is precious.” ~ Billy Collins

Chris Green. (Courtesy photo)

The medicinal quality of poetry