My mother, for those of you who don’t know by now, was a poet, a marvelous poet. When she died in September 2006, a number of us simultaneously had the idea of putting together a volume of her poetry, and so when I was home after the funeral, my wife and I collected all her manuscripts and records and computer files and Xerox copies of her published poems and hauled it all back to Boston. After collating, sorting, and cleaning everything up, we had about 600 poems, well over a hundred of which had been published. Four of us teamed up to choose the poems for the volume, and by January of last year – more than a year after she died – the project was finally done.
Earlier today, at Cheryl Perrault’s “Wake Up and Smell the Poetry” event, I featured and played a couple songs and read some of my mother’s poetry. This was, actually, Cheryl’s idea. At one point, I’d mentioned to her that my mother had been a poet, and Cheryl had invited me to play a couple songs and read some of my mother’s poetry. I thought that was a beautiful, touching idea, and I was grateful for the opportunity.
But I’d never put together a set list featuring someone else’s material. And here’s the problem: my mother’s style and mine are, well, nothing alike. For instance, my mother – and it pains me to say this – was not a snarky woman. I know, I know, it’s hard to believe that I came by my own snarkiness honestly, but there it is. So there was a whole swath of my own material that I couldn’t possibly play – it frankly would have trivialized my mother’s work, and that wasn’t going to fly. And what’s also out of character for me was that since my mother’s poetry was the focus of my performance, it was very important to me to choose songs that complemented her work. Not to mention the fact that I’ve never read any poetry in public; sure, I’ve written some, but trust me, you do not want to hear it.
In the end, there were really only two songs I could conscientiously play – “The Handyman’s Waltz”, a witty ode to my father, and “The Songs that Write Me”, a comment on the artistic process that, honestly, I’m not even sure I understand completely. Now, conveniently enough, these are two of my favorite songs – but that was a secondary consideration. So I sandwiched these two in between a block of my mom’s poetry that ended with a song about her dad, and another block which started with a poem about poetry. Clever, eh? No flies on me, that’s for sure.
Seriously, though, in the end it was a delightful morning. My friend Trish Knudsen read some of her intimate and compelling poems; I saw the wonder that is performance poet David Macpherson; and I apparently did a creditable job of presenting my mother’s work. Her book is called “The Diamond of Your Name”, and you can download a free PDF from http://www.lulu.com/content/1954619. The performance will be available on the Internet sometime in the next month or so. And I promise to go back to talking about myself next time.