The Thinking Man Poetry Collection
An archive of our forgotten poetry
One of the unfortunate things about watching a publication grow over the years is seeing some of your earlier work get lost. Some of the stuff that I’m the most proud of has been seen by basically nobody.
Take “The Ballad of the Daytime Watchman,” about two tortured souls who were once lovers, banished on opposite poles of the world as a cruel punishment for past misdeeds.
Or this one, in which I compare life to a word search puzzle.
This is a great stream of consciousness piece by John, not quite a poem, but in the spirit of one.
Check them out. We don’t write poetry very often (as you can see), but there’s some good stuff in here.
As always, thank you for reading.
When I finish writing something—a book, essay, poem, short story—it amazes me how once I’ve gotten the thing out, it’s gone.
It’s a strange feeling. The first book I wrote, which won’t ever see the light of day, is a story about a guy named Will. Will was with me for two years of torture as I painfully put his story into existence. I thought of him often, as if he was someone I knew well. Then one day, the book was finished. And Will was gone—forever.
This happens to me basically every time I write. Things I have created and put out leave no trace that they had ever existed in my mind. I was reminded of this feeling by you mentioning the piece I wrote about our Lake Placid trip. I couldn’t believe I wrote something like that, and still can’t. It can’t be replicated and it won’t be.
That’s the beauty of writing. We put things out there, little creations, that then go out and exist on their own.