Standing on a Chair

I've been listening to "Bad Dogs Have more Fun" by John Grogan, on CD. A Christmas gift from Mom. It's basically six CDs of columns about life that Grogan had written while with The Philadelphia Inquirer over the years.

I'm grateful to be in a a field that births so many interesting stories. Or rather, experiences that make me grateful for what I do.

I was updating and organizing some photo albums the other day when I came across a scrap book from my time in Cleveland so many summers ago, when I had an internship there. I recognized it right away, the photo copy of a poem. With the poem, I wrote an explanation...


Wednesday, July 22, 1998
I had a very neat experience today. I was sent to the Community Reentry Headquarters on W25th Street in Cleveland to photograph a meeting that was taking place there. The Women's Re-Entry Writers Group. It was a group of formerly incarcerated women who write poetry and prose. There were five women. They all seemed like interesting people. I felt cautious. I wanted to be as inconspicuous as possible. Some of the women spoke of very personal experiences and I felt like and intruder. It was just a meeting and although what was being said was interesting, they just at around a table. Not very visual. I used my strobe and self-consciously stood on chairs in an effort to make my pictures more interesting. I went to leave and apologized for being distracting and for interrupting in order to get names. Mary Strope had read a poem at the start of the meeting - she had a slow and deliberate delivery, like Maya Angelou. Before I left, she asked if she could read something she'd written since the start of the meeting. She read with the same power of delivery as she had done before. I wonder if she knows how much what she read meant to me. She let me photocopy the page for me from her journal....

Plain Dealer and Poetry Club
The Poetry Club
Didn't want to be here
Showin up
Wasn't excited
Knowing my spirit needed to rise
Time's passin
Just sittin
Reading poems
Talking poems and poetry
The press is present
Cameras flashing
Risen by standing on a chair
I'm like, ahhh
my spirit has risen
laughter, joy, smile
now fill my space
Somehow the press standing on a chair
Made my spirit smile
Improper to be grateful
Thanking everyone
So I will just thank God
All is done

-Mary Slade