Safety Net

I am not the kind of gal who flies by the seat of her pants.  When I introduce an author at a reading, I always have a safety net in the form of a sheet of notes about the author and their work.  That sheet of notes contains items that I have cogitated on usually for a couple of days, perhaps even weeks.  Often, the notes come from the marginalia that I have scribbled in the margins and in between the lines of text in my copy of their book (if you have ever borrowed a well-loved book from me, you have noticed this obsessive habit…Eric says that he likes to read my copies so that he can see what I have written).  The notes are usually a bit of a review of the book for which the author is about to give a reading.  I do not usually read directly from the sheet of notes, unless I am reading an example of the author’s work, a review of their work, or some statistical fact about the author.  But I do keep the sheet of notes on my body, or in my hand, should I need to remind myself of something I wanted to say. 

So, I have notes for most of the author introductions that I have made over the last five years.  I sometimes turn them into reviews of the author’s work and post them on Goodreads; sometimes not.  Here is the fleshed-out version of my introduction of Dan, a sort of review of his work:

I cannot help but compare Daniel Donaghy to the great singer/songwriter Bruce Springsteen.  My reasoning behind this is because he writes poems of the working class; the people working to make a living, to get by, but hoping for more.

In Start with the Trouble, Donaghy envisions a better future for people about whom he writes:  the bikers, the prostitutes, the dock workers, the homeless, his own family…himself.

But there is no romanticizing.  Some folks don’t get that better future.    Donaghy knows that all too well.

From the poem Touch (pg. 38, Start with the Trouble):

“…in the days before we’d sit alone

aching to be touched,

Johnny Wurtzel looking for a hand

to pull him back from heroin,

Angel Beach reaching out

for the fathers of her five kids,

Danny Boyer wanting someone

to do something other than tease

his lisp and his weight, finding

only a .22 he pressed to his head

one night on Snake Road in the rain.

But some do find a better future, they make it for themselves, as we see in the personal journey the narrator takes us on.  We find that he is transformed from a patron saint of nothing, to a man who finds salvation in the telling of others stories.

So, if you are looking for something worthwhile to read, pick up one of Dan’s books of poetry.  Streetfighting is his first book; Start with the Trouble is his second and most recent book.  They are both solid works, and I would recommend reading them back-to-back. 

'Cause he's real good at what he does...

Had the good fortune to have an old friend in town last week.  It wasn’t a social call, but not every moment was work, either.  Dan was in from Connecticut to give a poetry reading at the library and to conduct workshops at some of the local high schools.  He did everything he came into town to do, and made quite a name for himself as he did.  I believe that he may even be an honorary citizen of Gadsden now, for all his local-high-school-football-score-knowin,’ Gone-with-the-Wind-exhibit-tournin,’ and fried-chicken-eatin’ ways.  That’s all fine and good, but the real reasons for him being an honorary Gadsdenite is because he gave one hell of a reading at the library, and turned about a hundred and twenty students into poets.  I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of a Gadsden chapter of the Daniel Donaghy Club, and that they were working on an epic poem about his exploits along the banks of the Coosa.  I could see it rivaling the story of Emma Sansom or Noccalula…

During one of the high school workshops, Dan brainstormed with the students and asked them to write two narrative portrait poems, based upon certain personal things, following certain guidelines. He encouraged me and my friends (a coworker, who was sitting in on the exercise, and the student’s teacher) to participate as well.

The students worked.  They worked with eyes looking up to the ceiling while thinking.  They worked with arms curled around their papers (to shield from prying eyes) when writing.  They seemed unaffected by the assignment.  Or less affected by the assignment than were the adults.

For us adults (and I’m basing my assessment upon the fact that, when I glanced over at my coworker friend and at my teacher friend, they gave me the same anguished look that I imagine was on my own face), the assignment was like what I would imagine a person’s first session of therapy to be like.  I didn’t know where to begin.  And once I started writing, oh, my gosh, I went and made the poems too personal, too therapeutic, too not-for-reading-to-a-group-of-high-school-students-with-whom-I-conduct-business-with-some-of-their-parents.  I just prayed to not be called upon to read my poems out loud, which was fitting…because I’m sure that I would’ve felt the same way, had I been seventeen, and part of the student body that day. 

So, with the understanding that I am not a writer or poet (although my parents may think differently because they are the people who bankrolled my ballet career, my painting career, my sewing career, which means I am probably still a brilliant ballerina/sartorialist/painter in their eyes.  In actuality, I'm just a sometimes teacher of "Ballet for the Uncoordinated," a weekend sewer of stuffed animals, and a painter who can only do the kind of painting that is considered manual labor.), I present my two poems.  As you will see, they are linked, and meant to be read together:

Dinner at Elizabeth Padgett’s Trailer, Waynesburg, KY, Summer 1982

A housedressed Gran at the stove,

scrape, scrape, scraping a wooden spoon along the bottom of the skillet.

A knock at the trailer door.

Sky blotted out by Uncle Roder’s dark form.

Smell of red-eye gravy and his hat is missing.

I open the door to his “I done her up right this time.”

This, over the sound of dinner being made.

Aunt Sarah & Uncle Roder’s Farm, Waynesburg, KY Summer 1982

Corn, rows a body could get lost in, leading to a bleached-grey barn.

Rustling of stalks, mom’s footfalls in front of me, and Gran stumbling out of the barn, “The son of a bitch’s killed her!”

A dog’s mournful wail, for hunger, not for this loss.

Me, blinking hard, an impossibly blue sky, even more impossible scene unfolding.

Nose full of animal, both body and manure.

Aunt Sarah, Uncle Roder, Gran, mom and me,

A straight-line equation equaling nothing good can come of this

On a farm in Waynesburg, KY during the summer of 1982.

What did I tell you?  Not fit for certain company, right?  Well, they are what they are.  And I have Dan to thank for dragging them out of me.

Soon, I’ll be posting the intro I gave for Dan’s reading at the library.  It’s not quite a review of his work, but it is pretty darn close, in my eyes.  And I want folks to get out there and read his work.  'Cause he's real good at what he does.