In observance of Father’s Day, Mirror Indy invited writer Chi Sherman, 52, to interview poet John Sherman, 83, who is her father.
John, who is from Portland, Indiana, is a writer and photographer. He will read from his new poetry book “Fussing A Bit: Poems of My Lives” at 6 p.m. Monday, June 29, at the College Avenue library branch
Chi is a writer for the Saturday Evening Post. She was born in what used to be the country of Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
You can also hear him read his poem “Fall Creek Parkway Indianapolis 1959” at the end of this interview.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Chi Sherman: How did you get started with poetry?
John Sherman: I fell in love with Robert Frost in high school, along with Walt Whitman, Carl Sandberg, Emily Dickinson and e.e. cummings.
Chi: What was your first published poem?
John: It was called “Star” and it got published in 1974. I published my first book, “It Give You Something to Think About,” in 1977. I sold copies for $1 at my first poetry reading at Peace Corps headquarters where I was working. People grabbed them up. They said they were excited because this was the first edition. Of course, there was never a second edition, but I signed it anyway.
Chi: Do you know how many poems you’ve had published?
John: Around 120 poems. Some poems got published several times.
Chi: Do you have personal favorites?
John: “Marjorie Main” would certainly be a favorite because it references my maternal grandparents, who are so dear to me, and talks about the farm where I grew up. “Cages” is another. It’s about race relations, which is something I often wrote about, like my “Fall Creek” poem.
Chi: What inspired “Fall Creek Parkway Indianapolis 1959?”
John: I was in eighth grade and with a 4H group. We were in a bus driving down Fall Creek and saw a young Black woman walking. This kid on the other side of the bus leaped up — I remember that vividly — and yelled the N-word out the window, which was open because we had no air conditioning, so she must have heard him. It shocked the whole bus and we yelled at him. It was such an awful thing to say and he did it on impulse.
Chi: How did your poetry change as your worldview expanded?
John: My subject matter became much more varied due to where I lived, my marriage and being involved with the Peace Corps during the Nigeria/Biafra Civil War. I had many new experiences and would be inspired to write something. I quickly learned to write as much as possible when the feeling struck because otherwise I would forget.
Chi: What else have you learned about writing poetry over the years?
John: When I first started writing, I thought poems had to be about love and death, dark and light. Very dramatic and very sad. I realized some of the best poetry is about something very mundane.
Chi: Like Billy Collins.
John: Yes! I like to think I do the same thing. I write about something that’s very common or ordinary. People have commented on it like, “I would never think about writing a poem about this.” It can be a very powerful poem, but it’s about something that’s a footnote in most people’s lives.
Chi: That’s great. There’s so much poetry that’s basically inaccessible.
John: Oh yes. Early on, I decided to write against that. I pride myself on being accessible. I want to make people think, but I also want them to understand what I said.
Chi: Some of your more accessible work is about me and my brother David. What are some of those poems?
John: There’s “Little Girl, Little Boy” and “Conversations with My House,” which is in the book. I also wrote, “For David Who Is Only At This Point a Photo” after the adoption agency gave us a picture of him when he was just six months old.
Chi: How do you feel when you finish a poem? Has that feeling changed over the years?
John: Well, you know how it is. There’s a sense of … relief isn’t really the word. And joy is certainly not the word because you’re very cautious. You’re not sure you’re going to keep the poem. I’ve thrown out many but mostly I keep them and continue to work on them. Sometimes — and this is true of any kind of writing — it gets published and you read it and think, “I shouldn’t have said that.”
One hopes you’re always looking to be better. Thanks to rewriting and plain old experience, I think my poetry has gotten better over the years.
Chi: Let’s talk a bit about our creative collaboration, “Shades: Writings on Race, Culture, and Gender.” We released a “Shades” CD in 2015 and followed it up with several readings. Do you remember how we got started?
John: We’d both written a lot about race, so that was a big part of it. We realized there was a commonality in our work, like we’d separately written poems about being spies, so we compiled some complementary writings and recorded the CD.
Chi: To wrap up, let’s talk a bit about how you evoke emotion when you write and/or read your poems.
John: When I talk about writing with high school students, I say poetry is therapy and I use my poem “April Afternoon” as an example.
In the poem, I get off the bus after work. It’s humid and suddenly I’m scared. It took me a few blocks to realize the weather had reminded me of afternoons playing softball in elementary school. I was a terrible player.
I rushed home and wrote a draft of the poem. I read it to Mom and when I got to the last stanza, without warning, I just started sobbing. I was as shocked as she was. I tell the high school kids that you can write about something that’s really emotional to you, but you never have to share with anybody. Write anything you want to. Just get it out.
‘Fall Creek Parkway Indianapolis 1959’
I know just where she was on the northside sidewalk
along fall creek parkway south of the marott
how often on today’s downtown errands do I glance
at the very spot on that walk
that I have designated where she was in full stride
on her way to school
when a young white boy leaped across the aisle
to get to the open window of
our yellow bus that rushed into her life
and pushed on through heavy traffic
before she could hear our collective gasp
and our words of anger at his unseemly act
as an adult I remember my childhood most clearly
as quick moments of its intensities:
the back of the woman’s head
the white blouse
the shoulders bent over an armful of books
the morning sun and gentle breeze
the perfect seconds before
the boy’s sudden dash
the protruding face mouthing an unnecessity
the welcoming clear and sunny morning despoiled
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Chi Sherman is a Mirror Indy freelance contributor. You can reach her at chizomasherman@gmail.com.
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