A Poem for David M

A year ago this April, I picked up one of David McFadden's recent books of poetry at Hamilton Public Library. It was poetry month, and so there was a selection of verse collections to choose from, the books folded like butterflies on the display shelf, waiting to take flight.

That night, I couldn't stop reading the poems, which were all haikus and tankas: compressed Japanese structures that provided terse, durable containers for McFadden's witty, unpredictable insight and observations. The book is called Shouts Down a Well.

I can't remember a single one of those poems now, and I returned the book to the library long ago, but it was that book that inspired me to start writing poems again.

It is not likely any great service to humanity that McFadden's words moved me to pick up the pen, but it certainly has improved my life. Writing has proven a pretty good remedy for depression, almost as good as reading McFadden's surprising and insightful poems, which might also have sometimes been the fruits of emotional and mental trouble.

David McFadden died today, at the age of 77.

I never met him, though I have met his daughter, Jenny, who lent me a book of her father's poems that I have yet to return (I promise to, Jenny!). Even so, there are some poets whose voice is like a friend, and whose words provide comfort in those moments when the rest of the world seems irreparably crazy, including the one inside your own head. David McFadden is one of those voices for me, and I am very grateful for his writing.

I could go on to explain how he mixes the random, bountiful eccentricities of everyday encounters--on the bus, in the street, in the kitchen or at the park--with  a gift for expression that is disarming for its wit and inventiveness, while still seeming like story about the thing that happened to you on the way to the grocery store. But you should really just seek out some of his books and poems for yourshelf, and give them a read.

McFadden's words are like the salt that never loses its saltiness, and keeps the world from going flat. This poem is for him...