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Feature Write #3: Ryan Ashley + Untouched Poetry
A few weeks ago at the Pearl Street Farmer’s Market, I grabbed my intended veggies and an unintended poem.
Just after filling my bag with spinach, red onions, garlic and honey, and just before entering Sexy Pizza, I noticed a line of people standing in front of a guy with an open suitcase, an old-timey typewriter and a sign that said, “Poems for Sale.”
Poems for sale?
I froze.
And zeroed in on this guy with suspenders and a hat, white t-shirt, rolled jeans and flip flops, who click-clacked words onto a little square piece of paper, pulled it out of his typewriter, and read his lines to perfect strangers who had given him their special order. There was a name or a subject on their mind, and he resourced the formless to give words to those things on, below and above the surface.
There was this couple going on and on about him TO him, and then there was this lady who, upon reading his poem, fell into tears. I loved this moment. She needed to be moved, and he moved her. After a sweet hug between the two of them, she walked away hunched into the supporting embrace of her friend, poem in hand.
I’d never seen anything like it.
On the spot words.
Combined.
Just like that.
Ready to go, to be given away.
Just like that.
I could never do anything like that. I think and re-think, and feel and cry and re-read and cry and try again, and walk around and go through tragedies before I can whip out a poem. So, once I actually finish something, I usually harbor it for myself. I hold on tight.
But he put his words together in seconds, and then just…gave them away.
Just like that.
Well. I had to have one.
But I had no cash left, so I headed to the free-standing ATM which is located right next to the fresh squeezed lemonade stand and the live folk music. It was broken. How could it be broken?
And I remembered about the other ATM which is all the way down the street past the all-night coffee shop and right in front of the old house that has been converted into an attorney’s office. This attorney got a bright idea and stuck an ATM outside his front door so he could make a few weekend bucks off the farmer’s market goers. I guess his suitcase was open too. His sign should read, “Cash for sale.” I was thankful for his bright idea.
After waiting FOREVER for the two guys and then the young mom to get their intended cash, I finally got mine and rushed back to the spot where poems happen.
But he was gone. All gone.
A farmer’s market tragedy.
So, I plopped onto the steps in front of the blue house on Pearl Street aimless, wondering what I had missed. Maybe the gods and the angels had some words for me that day, and if only I would have passed on the raw honey this week, I would have had the cash to fill his suitcase and a raw poem to guide my path.
But then he re-appeared.
“Are you done?” I snagged his attention.
“Yes. It’s so hot.”
“Well. I need a poem.” I didn’t give him a choice.
“Um, well, let’s..let me..I’ll bring my typewriter over to you in the shade. It’s so hot.”
And he wrote me a poem.
And we talked.
Turns out there was a lot of emotional energy in the air that day. He woke up feeling it, and sure enough, the woman who had read his poem, the one who left in tears, had come to a point in her journey. She was 20 minutes away from having that conversation with her mother. The conversation where boundaries need to take place. The conversation you shouldn’t have to have with your mother. For her own reasons, she had come to that decision, and the hour was upon her. She would leave the Pearl Street Farmer’s Market, supported by a poem, and head to her mother’s house to tell her that she could no longer be in her life.
Heavy.
Turns out the poet was embarking on a journey of his own. A 45-day trip across the United States via bus or train, to as many cities and as many farmer’s markets that would take him, his typewriter, “Jolene,” and their combination of words, magic, delight and energy flow. A 45-day trip to his unknown.
I don’t know why, but I mentioned that I teach journal writing.
“I need that.”
Turns out I didn’t need that cash after all. We would trade. The poem, in exchange for a few journal writing techniques.
This is my kind of life. I dig this. I dig being with people just on the verge of their journey. Taking a risk. Doing what they know they need to do. Stepping into faith whether they know it or not. Testing what they are made of. Opening themselves to what may be real about them. What may be true. Finding things out about themselves that they never would have known if they wouldn’t have embarked on the journey. I’ve been on this road. Still am, and it’s always worth it. These journeys are the ones that, in the end, expand you, make you fuller, make you whole, tell you the truth, break you and then heal you.
We met on Thursday. Green tea to keep us warm from the cooling Denver night.
Journals on the table ready to absorb all that there was in that moment.
Turns out he has some things to face. Turns out his beautiful, loving, Spanish mother was murdered (in front of him and his siblings) by his father. He was in junior high at the time.
Heavy.
After I named a few of the journal techniques, he felt drawn to the “Cluster” technique. Says he’ll use it on his journey. Says it expanded his mind. Says it gave him information that was good for him to know. I think that’s what he said. Maybe it’s just what I heard.
But. He liked it enough to come back for more. We met again at Mici in Cherry Creek North where we both enjoyed an adventuresome “List of 100.”
He left the next day for his travels, wanting to devour the universe, typewriter in hand, blank paper in his pocket, ready to be filled with words to be given to farmer’s market goers, who will show up on a Saturday for their intended veggies and leave with an unintended poem.
Just like that.
A POEM FOR A MENTOR:
“TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY
ONE THAT WILL NEVER COME.
WE WILL SURELY CHASE THE DREAMS
AS IF THEY’D HURT US.
WHEN WE WAKE UP
FROM THIS MADNESS OF TRYING.
OUR WORDS WILL FEATHER OUT
INTO A FOREST OF PERSPECTIVE.
GIVING US THE FREEDOM WE SEEK
TO BECOME ONE WITH THE GOD I CONSUME.”
~Ryan Ashley, Untouched Poetry
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