The Troy Poem Project: Building Bridges in an Era of Walls
Speaking to Meghan Marohn by telephone about her Troy Poem
Project was a unique experience for me, and for two reasons. The first being I
had first seen her the year before sitting in Riverside
Park Troy ,
New York Hudson River . She set up her table and ’64
Royal typewriter in the shade and watched the crowds stroll through the
bi-weekly flea market that gathers there. Sometimes people approached,
sometimes they walked by without a glance, and others glimpsed with curiosity
but are not quite brave enough to step up and say hello.
I, sadly, fell into the third category, although I now wish
I did stop and ask for a poem. Getting to know someone by phone without being
able to see them when I had originally seen them but didn’t say hello was a bit
funny to me, but I happily discovered we had a great deal in common, the most
important of which included our belief in the power of poetry’s ability to
ignite change.
 |
| Meghan Marohn at a steampunk festival in Troy, NY |
Meghan is not a full-time resident of the Troy
area, but like myself she grew up here and left to see where her words might
take her. She currently teaches in New Jersey
at Fairleigh Dickinson and a local high school, making trips upstate as
frequently as she can, while also visiting family in Vermont .
All of this mirrored my own personal route of living in the NYC metro-region
and coming north visit Albany and Vermont .
We even spent portions of our lives residing in the small village
of Greenwich Troy
by about 40 minutes via car, although at different times. And while the
coincidences stretched into the creative realm and the belief that poetry can
break barriers and build bridges between disparate people, Meghan’s desire to
put these beliefs into action far outpaces my own—and most others I know, to be
honest—by a wide upstate country mile.
One of the questions I had
to ask her, of course, was why she
felt compelled to put herself into a public forum with a typewriter and offer
to write anyone a poem about any topic. It sounds fascinating and challenging,
but most of all it sounds absolutely terrifying. Meghan didn’t disagree,
admitting the project seemed a little crazy at first and she was nervous in the
beginning, but it always felt more like an experimental art project than
anything else. Over time, it almost became a sort of public service, one the
public didn’t even know it needed. But for those who do stop and see Meghan, it
becomes clear the service is vital, and that this importance goes both ways.
Her first poem was for a kind, patient woman who said she was
a social worker helping those who led difficult lives, ex-convicts and the
like, and she asked Meghan for a poem about dealing with anger and expressing it
in effective ways. Meghan began to type, and through the conversation and the
act of writing, she realized there is a deep sadness hiding beyond the emotion
of anger, a sort of basement within each of us that is dark and lonely, a place
where one can feel trapped and isolated, and finding ways to express this can
go very wrong very easily. This is the root of so much anger in our world.
Meghan described this feeling and imagery much more
powerfully and accurately than this, and I realized later I was so interested
in the story that I wasn’t writing half of what she said down. But the image
and sensation rings true to me, both the idea that sadness anchors all anger,
and the blossoming realization that comes to a poet only in the act of writing.
But most of us have these realizations in our homes, or in libraries, cafes,
and anywhere we can find a moment to scribble in a notepad. Meghan has them in
front of the very people who brought these realizations upon her. This often
leads to more talking than writing, and this is the key reason why she is so
compelled to bring poetry to the public.
This project, this service, has little in common with all
the other vendors set up at the flea market. She isn’t a merchant and will
write these poems for free. It’s not about a transaction. Meghan is happy to
sidestep the consumerist aspect of the exchange. It’s about sharing the idea
that poetry has power. That poetry can transcribe and make clear deep,
impactful emotions and ideas. And most of all that poetry is accessible to
anyone, and this is an especially important message to share in a place like Troy .
This city has a very small section of downtown that has
flourished and attracts a clientele of college students, young professionals,
and hip entrepreneurs, with a flood of recent bars, shops, and restaurants that
seem plucked up from Brooklyn ’s Williamsburg
or Manhattan ’s East
Village Second
Avenue and see a popular, flourishing biergarten
and turn the other way and see a string of ramshackle tenements. Poverty is a sad
reality here, and long has been. Economic barriers, class barriers, racial
barriers are all deeply rooted in this community. Meghan believes poetry can
play a small but important role is helping us take these barriers down.
“Exchanging ideas and expressions can transcend all these
constructs that separate us,” she says. “This project is about talking with
each other, sharing poems and ideas, sharing feelings and needs. It’s about
coming together to better communicate big ideas that affect us in many
different ways, little ways and big ways.”
In effect, it’s a moment between people with art as the bridge.
Meghan stresses that this ability to create a moment of exchange
is needed in an age where so many seem to want to put walls up, end
conversations, denounce diversity, and for her to be able to build that bridge with
someone who might be intimidated by such an exchange, it feels empowering for
everyone involved. For many, poetry is that thing we had to read in school that
was so hard to understand, this elite, academic obtuseness that didn’t connect
to the day-to-day struggle. Meghan is working to help people understand that
this artform, perhaps more than any other, is for everyone. We’re so divided by
class and money and politics and party and consumption, and we need something
that transcends all that.
Poetry can be that thing.
And yet, “its just people,” Meghan says, summing the entire
project up with a quiet finality on the other end of the phone. “This whole
thing, it’s more than one person sitting at a typewriter. It’s about people.”
Beyond the Troy Poem Project, Meghan Marohn is working on
some interesting things both locally and at home in New
Jersey . Some are environmental and political in
nature, and one project involves a book of poems inspired by works by Mary
Oliver. But if you happen to be walking through Troy
this summer, she’ll still be out there at the flea market. You should stop by. You
may see Meghan fast at work building bridges, spanning divides, breaking
barriers, the joyful clatter of her ’64 Royal typewriter sounding the call of community,
the collective of commons, doing the good work poetry and people were always
meant to do.
- James H Duncan
No comments:
Post a Comment