A Prison Poet Steps Across My E-mail
A prison poet, imprisoned no more, showed up in my e-mail this morning, asking a word of advice, a critique perhaps. I read his poem dry-eyed, then read it to my wife and couldn't keep the tears at bay, nor could she.
I have no advice.
Poetry isn't a matter of iambic pentameter or the rules of so many beats to the line. It touches your heart or it doesn't. Let me share James Kottmeier's poem;
Abbreviated Consonance
i watched another young man lose a loved one today-
unable to bury his own nineteen year-old brother.
unable to hold his grieving mother (unable to be a son).
unable to do anything but cry into the phone,
receive consoling hugs from men he met over a bowl of mush.
prison-made tattoos don’t conceal tears very well.
did I mention that i love this young man like a brother,
like the little brother these cages prevented me from growing up with?
how many little brothers, how many sons, have i had in places like this?
how could my own little brother know that i am really a b…