Speak to Me Sunday: Write Me a Poem

His name was Cameron.

Nestled among vendors selling grilled kebabs and beaded pens and farm-grown vegetables, his booth had a quietness about it.

A chair and table. An honest-to-goodness typewriter. A banner that read: I’ll write you a poem!

How, I ask, could I not be intrigued?

And so, I let him write me a poem.

At first, he sat with his fingers poised over the keyboard, contemplating our conversation about writing and poetry and love of travel. When he began to type, among the market noises of conversation, laughter, and a musician with a microphone, there was the staccato tapping of an honest-to-goodness typewriter.

Later, when he handed me the finished poem, I recognized the vulnerability of having a stranger read something you had just written, and I respected him for it; there is also vulnerability in having a writer watching you read it.

But that is what poetry does, it pulls you out of yourself, and there was an awareness about his finished poem, an intuitiveness because it was so … me.

We had not talked about my love of books, but his poem mentioned me as both a reader and a writer. I did not tell him about my two-shoebox-full postcard collection, or that I use postcards as travel journals, but he somehow knew. I did not mention that given a choice between the beach or mountains I would pick mountains every single time, and yet it was in the mountains his poem placed me.

But that is another thing poetry does, it creates magic. For there, among vendors selling grilled kebabs and beaded pens and farm-grown vegetables, I found a poet.

His name was Cameron.

And he wrote me a poem.

my poem

A View on Perspective

Do you know what I find discouraging? There is no perspective anymore. As a society, we are spoon-fed by the media and the stories written and images projected only offer a telescopic view of what is America. And what is even more discouraging is that the rest of the world is offered this same narrow view and thinks, “That is America.”

But it is not.

According to the latest statistics (2024), there are 340 million people living in the United States.

According to the latest statistics (2019), there are 19,500 incorporated cities, towns, and villages in the United States.

Every night Headline News claims that the United States is in a crisis and that political, social, and economic division is ripping the country apart,

that systemic racism is rampant in all levels of our society,

or that every city is plagued by riots and civil unrest and looting.

But chances are, despite all these things, you listen to news anchors, watch the news clips, and think, "That's not my experience. That is not my country, or my city. That is not me."

Because most of the 19,500 incorporated cities, towns, and villages in the United States are NOT Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, or New York City. 

Because most of the 340 million people living in the United States are citizens who work side by side, play together at recess, socialize at parties, and worship at churches, synagogues, temples, or mosques. They rebuild each other’s houses after a hurricane, bring food to a neighbor, volunteer at homeless shelters. And they do all this despite differences in economic, social, political, racial, or religious differences. 

This does not mean that problems should not be acknowledged and that we should not step forward to be part of a collective change. As citizens, we carry the responsibility to not only promote the ideals of our country, but to remind each other (and the world) that we are not defined by large inner cities, strident politicians, famous movie stars, or media news outlets.

We are the “rest of the story.” The one not told.

Ultimately, we are all imperfect parts that make up the whole, but focus through a telescopic lens on the former and you lose sight of the latter—a country which covers 3.8 million square miles, its land as varied, complex, colorful, and complicated as its people. 

This is America, from sea to shining sea.