The Garden of Verse: The Way We Were -- At Least in Our Poems

Living alone in Boston in the virtually prehistoric decade of the seventies, working lousy jobs, or no jobs, and writing poetry as a sure way to stay poor, I joined up in a “co-op” publishing venture consisting of similar types based in Cambridge. We published a slim poetry tabloid called “Dark Horse” and sold copies on the street for next to nothing. A favorite venue was the sidewalk on Huntington Avenue in front of Boston's Museum of Fine Arts -- especially on Sunday mornings, when they opened the doors for free. 
        I think my favorite pitch was something like "Get your news about the state of the universe." I think the price was a quarter. I think it really was. 
         I doubt we sold many copies. But we were pleasantly surprised when we sold some. 
          Anyway the monthly online poetry journal Verse-Virtual, of which I am regular contributor, asked poets to submit "early poems" for the now current December 2017 issue. 
           Remarkably, I put my hands on a few (I hoard paper) and three of these are currently up on Verse Virtual at http://www.verse-virtual.com/robert-c-knox-2017-december.html
            The first of these, posted below, "Background," is a fairly paranoid sounding piece I don't really remember writing, though the words felt familiar as I read them. I don't recall the 'brief encounter' that appears to have provoked this account, but I think I was attracted to the various different meanings of the common term "background." Something is always, in one sense or another, going on in the 'background," even if it's just a bird making a noise in a tree.



BACKGROUND


Our paths cross by accident,
and each is a little nervous.
I have a good excuse to be somewhere else,
but miss too much
and life goes to pieces.

We meet between post office and library.
I would like to postpone the conversation,
like all my chores –
but these few words
may make us allies.

Behind us a tree and a crow
are talking,
and I would really like
to know what they are saying.  


The other two poems published in this December issue, "False Spring" and "November Firsts" have seasonal themes. In my memories of those days it is almost always autumn, except when it's winter.  

Verse-Virtual editor Firestone Feinberg asked us also to supply a photo of ourselves from the time when our early poems were written. The photo at the top here is a black and white snapshot my wife Anne (we met around the time these poems were written) helped me find. I don't really remember it, but it must be me because I still dress that way. 

Firestone himself supplied one of his own first poems, a very personal and meaningful record of meeting his wife in his first year of college. You can read that at http://www.verse-virtual.com/firestone-feinberg-2017-december.html