Joe Cottonwood
Joe Cottonwood photo from 11th grade yearbook
Mr. Hibbit was my Hero
By Joe Cottonwood
In 1963 my eleventh grade English teacher introduced me to modern poetry (ee cummings, my gateway drug) and inspired me to start a daily journal of stories, poems, songs, rants. I still keep a journal. Thank you, Mr. Hibbit. I celebrate him (and change his name) here:
Mr. Hilton
My Uber driver in bushy white beard
says ‘Wowza!’ with a memorable pitch
not heard since high school as he
conveys me skillfully, rapidly
up and down the streets of San Francisco
so I say “Excuse me, but did you once
used to teach eleventh grade English
in Montgomery County, Maryland?”
For half a minute he grimaces, shakes his head.
‘Awkward,’ he says. ‘Did you once used to. Wowza!’
In memory I drown. Speechless.
I’m the kid who doodled poems, stories for nobody
and for no purpose until clean-shaven Mr. Hilton
praised, encouraged, cheered.
Back then he was gay and couldn’t say.
Quoted Walt Whitman in a singsongy voice.
Sometimes he’d vow to quit teaching
and drive a taxi around D.C. and write
a novel about political mucketymucks.
“Did you write a novel?” I ask.
‘Drove taxi.’
“And wrote a novel?”
‘Not exactly.’
“You were my best teacher.”
‘Thank you.’ He grins. ‘You just made my day.’
He studies me, eyes in mirror. ‘Who are you?’
I tell him my name and say, “You inspired me.”
‘Inspired what?’
I tell him I write poetry.
‘Sorry,’ he says. ‘A miserable occupation.’
The ride ends and I say, “You changed my life.”
‘To be honest,’ he says, ‘I don’t remember you.’
“Thank you for discovering me.”
‘Nonsense. Wowza! You were always there.’
He won’t accept a tip.
photo from the jacket flap of Famous Potatoes
In 1976 I wrote a novel called Famous Potatoes published by Seymour Lawrence, the publisher of Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan. Seymour had worldwide clout and the book was a worldwide success with many translations. Though a novel, it included a refrain of Dylanesque poetry presented as a song:
Leonard and Clyde
Leonard and Clyde, just out of jail
Clyde picked his nose with a ten penny nail
Leonard read a Bible, said, “Hear me, oh Lord,
Take me to Heaven in this Forty-nine Ford.”
Clyde was a carpenter, Leonard a Jew
Clyde liked to hammer, Leonard to screw
Clyde built a house without windows or doors
Construction was perfect, concept was poor.
Mother America
What have you done?
All of your children
Out on the run.
Mother America
Oh say can you see
Life is so short
We got to be free.
The back seat was empty, so when Leonard looks up,
He say “Stop for those ladies, I think we’re in luck.”
One was a gypsy, she sat on Clyde’s lap
Told him his fortune, and gave him the clap.
Mother America
Red white and blue
She gave it to him
She’ll give it to you.
Mother America
Where’s that, you say?
Boston Massachusetts
To San Francisco Bay.
In 1979 I moved to La Honda and was welcomed into a group of La Honda poets who inspired me to put together my first poetry chapbook. Meanwhile I was doing construction work and happened to botch the installation of a shower requiring two days of repairs at the house of a woman whose boyfriend, John Daniel, was a small-press publisher which led to him publishing Son of a Poet. Here’s a poem from that book:
My House Was Always Wet
Faucets dripped.
Gutters overflowed.
The old roof, Vermont slate, leaked.
The two toilets, mysterious machines,
ran, whistled, gurgled, clunked in the night.
Drains backed up with smelly gray suds.
Cellar walls weeped.
Pipes shrieked.
If I took a shower upstairs,
downstairs a water stain
grew on Granma's ceiling.
Once after an extra long shower
("What were you doing in that shower, boy?")
Granma's ceiling
collapsed.
My father was no plumber.
Once he broke a china sink.
Ripped a hole in a bedroom wall,
then didn't come home at all, at all.
Doors grew mildew, ceilings grew mold.
Floor joists quietly rotted.
My own sprouting body grew fungus
in places I didn't dare mention.
Sister moved across the sea;
Brother, to the coast;
Gramma, to the hospital
and gave up the ghost.
I, too, travelled far
though moisture haunted
my every move:
sweating palms,
saliva of lips,
teardrops and their salty tracks,
juice of genitals, flood of birth,
milk of breast … The house
was leaking love, my friend,
and no pipe ever
brought it back.
Now grown, in a dripping house of my own,
being plumber and father combined,
why don’t we have love
most all of the time?
******
photo from the jacket flap of The Adventures of Boone Barnaby, my first novel for Scholastic
In the 1990s I turned to writing children’s books for Scholastic, the giant publisher. These were novels for middle grade readers, but I slipped some poetry into the stories, many in a novel called Babcock where a girl and a boy flirt with each other by exchanging songs and poems written in their voices:
Dragonfly
Dragonfly, Dragonfly,
Are you friendly? Are you shy?
You make my heart go shimmy shimmy
When I see you dance so skinny.
Dragonfly, Dragonfly,
Blond of hair and blue of eye,
You turn cartwheels on my shoes,
Make me lose these muddy blues.
Dragonfly, Dragonfly,
Tell me what and tell me why.
I’m a reptile, juvenile,
Make me human with your smile.
Dragonfly, Dragonfly,
Wild as the starry sky,
A thousand freckles, two big ears,
Stay with me a hundred years.
******
Somewhere in the 2000s I discovered Wattpad and started posting poems there and then at another online site called Hello Poetry. Many of those poems are still there. Both sites permit feedback from readers which gave me confidence. Instead of hiding my poems in novels I started submitting them to print and online outlets. In 2016 I found a home in Your Daily Poem thanks to Jayne Jaudon Ferrer. She was cultivating the same kind of audience I was seeking—just plain folks. Here’s the first:
My Blue Heron
My blue heron
is actually gray.
And actually
not mine.
She visits,
then vanishes.
On land she carries her feet
floppy as waffles on jointed sticks.
In flight she flaps slowly, folded neck, gliding
just above water, then stands
still as sculpture
toes in mud
until with a sudden cock of head
(can she hear them?)
that swift beak plucks a fish,
lifts, grips like pincers,
points to the sky.
A slight shake of head
to reposition above gullet,
and she swallows
with a smacking of mouth,
a gleam of eye.
She is a beauty.
Sorry, fish.
Also in 2016 I found Rat’s Ass Review and editor Roderick Bates for the more rowdy section of audience. Since then he’s published over 50 of my poems. Here’s the first:
Rich People Never Get Wet
The weather report
has one hitch:
It never rains
on the rich
Your water balloon will always miss
Their lips are dry when they kiss
In a flood they float yachts
In the nose, no snots
When huddled masses lose all
slammed by tsunami
The rich on high ground
donate salami
Point a hose at a rich woman,
she will point you to jail
(and you will go there
without fail)
Their roof never leaks
Their grass has no dew
The toilet won’t clog
with their poo
The rich man is one lucky fella
A poor man like me
will hold his umbrella
******
In 2017 I became a fan of MOON magazine edited by Leslee Goodman serving a spiritual, progressive, green audience. MOON became my go-to journal publishing dozens of my poems.
Then came Verse-Virtual. I sent 3 poems to Firestone Feinberg and to my surprise he accepted all. I love the community he fostered and that Jim Lewis maintains with such grace. I’ve sent emails to over a hundred poets in appreciation of their work, and received hundreds myself. What a great way to make friends, to build community.
The poet Mark Strand said “You don’t choose to become something like a poet. You write and you write, and the years go by, and you are a poet.” Thanks to Mr. Hibbit, and Seymour Lawrence, and the La Honda Poets, and John Daniel, and Wattpad and Hello Poetry, and Jayne Jaudon Ferrer, and Roderick Bates, and Leslee Goodman, and Firestone Feinberg, and Jim Lewis for helping me to write and write. And thank you so much, Sharon, for keeping it going.
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