Pick a Subject, Get a Poem

“A poem about rocket ships, please!”

The little boy, slightly out of breath from outrunning his mother in his rush to get to my table, handed me a dollar bill and looked up expectantly.

“Coming right up,” I replied.

Poems for children are always my favorites. They require less structure and more imagination, fewer words but just as much wonder.

I’ve been doing this for years, since before Nora died. After retiring, my days felt lost and purposeless, and this put some of the purpose back into them. Nora used to come with me sometimes, setting up a chair next to mine right in the middle of Jackson Square and offering up verse ideas for the subject I was working on. She loved hearing which topic people wanted their poem to be about. “It’s like their minds are calling with a personal peek into what they’re thinking about right at this moment,” she used to say. “And we’re the ones who get to answer.” She loved it when people chose obscure topics for their poem - a birthday candle, the smell of a new book, a first concert. She would think very deeply about each subject a person chose, tapping her foot against the stones of the square and closing her eyes. I set up my table in that same spot every day, but now instead of two chairs, there’s only one.

“Here you go, young sir.” I carefully rip the poem from my notebook and hand it to the boy, who puts the toy figurine he had been distracting himself with while waiting back in his pocket.

“That’s a great sign,” the boy says, pointing towards the bold painted lettering that reads Pick a Subject, Get a Poem. I watch the boy’s eyes move around the cardboard as he admires it. “The dinosaur is my favorite,” he says with a grin. The sign is sprinkled with random “poem topics” one might choose from. A dinosaur, a basketball, a rose, a doll. The objects cover almost every inch of the cardboard, creating a collage of colorful ideas.

“Thanks,” I smile back at him. “My wife did it.”

While the main reason for writing poems is to put a smile on people’s faces, it doesn’t hurt that it brings in a little money. With how busy Jackson Square gets, especially during festival season, my sign often attracts enough interest that there’s a list of poem topics beside me that people have requested. The poem requesters meander around the square, listening to live music or perusing the selections of paintings for sale, before coming back to retrieve their piece of paper that I’ve covered in words.

Nora started a tradition of choosing one person each day who would get a poem for free. “Look for someone who needs it most,” she would say. One day it would be a child who dropped their toy in the river. Another day, a nearby shop owner who spilled something on their shirt. An artist who didn’t sell any paintings that day. A man who just lost his job. A few weeks ago, it was a teenager sitting on the sidewalk’s curb, visibly drenched in sadness, staring at an untouched ice cream cone he was holding in his hand.

“This is for you,” I had said to the teenager, handing him a poem.

His eyes startled alive again as he looked up at me and connected the dots as to who I was.

“Oh, but I don't have money for it,” he replied quietly, not meeting my eyes.

“It’s a gift,” I said. As I walked back to my table, I glanced over my shoulder to look at the teenager. He was still sitting there, the poem in one hand and the ice cream cone in the other. I watched him read the poem, a single tear discreetly sliding down his face. That was weeks ago, and I can still picture that one tear, glimmering brightly in the sun.

Today there are fewer people wandering about. The woman who runs the B&B smiles and waves. I recognize the man who feeds the horses. The bookstore owner, the schoolteacher, the mailman, the food vendor, the jazz player, the museum director. I feel like I’ve come to know all of them over the past several years. Spending your days in the middle of the square means you get to see everyone, whether they like it or not. You get to talk and listen and write all day, meeting one new person after another. Sitting out here feels just like home, even though someone is missing.

“Excuse me, sir?” I look up to see a vaguely familiar face looking at me. Ah, I thought. It’s the teenager with the ice cream cone.

“Yes? Would you like another poem? I’ll even let you pick the topic this time.”

“Oh, no," the boy says. "I don’t need a poem - I loved my poem, actually. It’s, it’s something else. You see, a few days ago I went to that bookstore over there to buy you a black notebook, kind of like the one you have now, you know, as a thank you. So you'd have more paper to write on. Because that poem, it was like I wrote it. It’s like you knew what was in my head, and what needed to come out. So I picked out this notebook, and the store owner asked who it was for, and so I told him. I told him it was a thank you for giving me that poem, and he said you had done the same thing for him a couple years ago. He told me he still has the poem you gave him - he had been having a really bad day, and that poem made it less bad. And, well, sir, me and the store owner got to talking to other people, you know, friends and family and people all around, and it turns out you’ve given a free poem to a lot of people. Almost everyone in this city. You’ve helped so many of us, even if it was just for a moment. And so, I know I told you I got you this notebook for you to write in, but, I’m sorry sir, it turns out it’s already full.”

The teenager handed me the small black notebook, and I immediately felt the weight of it in my hands. After opening it up, my breath momentarily stopped as I saw what it contained.

“The store owner gave me a few dollars to put in the notebook, as his own thank you for the poem you gave him. But once we started talking to people, they all wanted to give you something too.” The teenager smiled shyly, pointing towards the bulging notebook. “Lots of people said they were paying it forward - that they were paying you back for the poem you gave them, but also for all the people in the future who will need a poem just like they did. It really added up. There must be close to $20,000 in there.”

I slowly flipped through the pages, not quite absorbing what the boy was saying. There’s no way this many people remembered the poem I wrote them, I thought. Looks like you thought wrong, I hear Nora say with a grin in my head.

People had not only attached dollar bills and checks to the notebook pages, but many had written notes too.

You gave my daughter a poem on the day her best friend moved away, one note said. She still has it pinned to her wall.

Another person had attached a hundred dollar bill with the scribbled message, You found me the day my father lost his battle with cancer. I read the poem you wrote for me at his funeral.

Another said, I got a verse from the poem you wrote me tattooed on my arm, so I never forget it.

On the very last page, I noticed my favorite part of the poem I had written for the teenager. Under it he had written, Thank you for making my feelings something that I can hold in my hands.

“I can’t possibly accept this,” I said, tears bubbling up at the corners of my eyes. “It’s too much, I don’t deserve it.” I pushed the notebook back towards him, his own poem’s page still open.

The teenager just shook his head and looked down at the pages before smiling and meeting my eyes. “It’s a gift.”