JACK WAS NIMBLE

I am having people over on Saturday.   I should be cleaning, shopping, getting ready.  But that's not what Jack would do if he could be writing instead.  That's what I tell myself.  I don't really know what Jack would do.  I didn't know him that well.  I didn't know him much at all, really, other than the "public" Jack who stood on stage and mesmerized us with his words.

Jack McCarthy, Stand-Up Poet.  That's what he called himself.  He showed up at our Unitarian Universalist Fellowship a number of years ago and hung out.  Sat sort of towards the back, slouching a bit at the end of the row, when he came to Sunday service.  Didn't say much.  I heard he was some sort of poet, so I was immediately intimidated and bestowed upon him all sorts of magical powers he probably didn't possess.

Then he started performing his poetry at local coffee houses.  And organized Invitational Poetry Slams at our Fellowship -- got all the best local poets to come and compete.  Local poets who had already made names for themselves in National and International Slam Poetry competitions.  I was completely and utterly blown away.  The raw power, the amazing stringing together of words that created image and emotion, told a 3 minute story that often stayed with me for days and weeks.  I became a FanGirl of Slam Poetry.

What I later learned about Jack was that he was legend in the Slam community, first at his home base in Boston, then the Northwest and points in between.  He was the "old guy" who hung with the 20-somethings and mentored them, shared space with them, competed with them.  And they loved him.  We all did.  He could make you laugh until you cried, then cry only because the next three lines of his poem were so poignant there was no other choice.  Following the flow of his words was like watching a kite fly in a blue sky, swirling, soaring, diving, reviving.

When he decided to teach a performance poetry class at our Fellowship I was the first to sign up.  I was elated.  I wanted to see if I could in any way produce that magic too.  I used to have dreams of writing. Not "daydreams", actual nighttime lucid dreams in which I wrote the most amazing things -- all kinds of writing -- and I'd know in my dream that it was real, that I was doing it, but the moment I came back to this world, the words drifted slowly away and were lost.   Still, I had never thought of myself as a writer.  I wrote. Yet to say "I'm a writer" was too big.  But Jack taught me otherwise.

The first thing he said at the first class was, "If you say you are a poet, you're a poet."  And with that out of the way, he showed us how to be better poets.  And encouraged us to keep learning, practicing, just doing it.  He was a "performance poet" where the verbalization of the words he wrote were as important as the words themselves.  I loved that.

Every class we were asked to come up to the front and read/perform a poem.   Being externally motivated and used to "teacher-pleasing" I always read with the hope of getting Jack's "atta-girl".  I was usually disappointed.  His response to a reading was usually a non-committal comment, but nothing like accolade, although he was very kind to one very bad poet and I loved him for that.  Once he even pointed out to the group that one poem I read was a good example of spotting a beginner poet, those who always seem to write about the craft of writing poems.  Grrr...  Another time, after what I still consider to be among my 2-3 very best poems, he said this:  "Sometimes you just know when you get it right."  I took that as high praise.

And I learned from his stingy compliments that my heart-song was my own to sing, whether anyone else liked it or not.  So I just kept going.  Kept writing.  Started going to Open Mics and Talent Nights and organizing readings with my women's poetry group.  People responded to my poems with laughter, tears, and applause.  It's a fabulous feeling to get that approval.  But that pales in comparison to the few who came up afterward to tell me they were touched, could relate, I spoke their own experience.  Writing, for me, is about connection.  The highest praise I can hear is that someone felt their own experience reflected and validated in my words.

And maybe that's ultimately what Jack taught us.  That each person's particular experience has universal appeal when we speak it out loud, sometimes on stage, under the lights...allowing our own vulnerability to give permission to another to touch theirs.

Jack died today.  He's one of those people who touched many lives.  I'm sure his memorial service will be packed with all sorts of people who will be a reflection of his amazing life.  I will sit towards the back, slouching a bit, remembering a man whose poems will never die.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Jack McCarthy  May 23, 1939 - January 17, 2013