Fishing

January 26, 2009

This poem, sent to me by The Writer’s Almanac (list serv), really moved me:

Fishing by Kate Scott

Sam was a galunky kind of guy,

my cousin says. He walked like this.

He takes on a bow-legged swagger

that makes us laugh. And boy,

could he drink beer. He lifts his hand,

tipping imaginary cans in quick succession.

He talked real fast too. Back then we laughed, asked what was the rush? Never slowed him any.

Girls loved him. He was such a big guy,

think they figured he must have a big heart.

My cousin slows a little in his walk,

tugs on his ear to remember more.

We hung out a lot and unless he was excited, talking fast, he was real quiet, would just sit, stare out to space like he was someplace else.

Maybe he was thinking about the girl he loved who died one winter, fell through the ice as she was skating towards him.

She was only twenty feet away, her arms out wide.

They say he was there all night,

smashed the ice in a hundred places to find her.

They pulled her out in the Spring.

I think when he talked so fast

he was trying to forget,

like the words would fill up the space she left.

My cousin stops in the road,

brushes imaginary hair from his eyes.

I lost touch for some time, years went by.

I didn’t hear from Sam, neither of us

were much use at letter writing.

Then one summer I came home to visit,

bumped right into him in a store downtown.

He talked real slow, like he was a clock that had wound down. He said he’d taken up fishing.

He said he didn’t much care for fish

but when he flung the line out hard,

heard the whir as it spun out over the water, saw the river winking and glinting at him, he felt he could catch anything.

“Fishing” by Kate Scott, from Stitches. (c) Peterloo Poets, 2003. Reprinted with permission.

I love the last line of this poem, and the description–the river winking and glinting at him…

As writers, and sometimes teachers, we talk so much about first lines– really pulling in that reader with the first line, doing something unique, eye-catching, memorable.

But last lines, to me, are just as important, and really just as difficult to write. Wrapping up a poem or story or essay, closing it, ending it, can be

To read another of Kate Scott’s poems, go here.

Finally, last night I went to a reading at The Ink Spot/San Diego Writer’s Ink– a space/place for writers and literary events where I’m teaching a class on writing short pieces starting tomorrow night. The reading was in celebration of the anthology, A Year In Ink, Volume 2, that has just been published. The anthology is made up of 41 San Diego writers. 41! It’s pretty awesome that it is a book made up of San Diego writers; I don’t think many folks would consider San Diego as having much of a writing community but it does– you may need to search it out, but it’s here. And it’s growing and thriving. I’m glad to be a part of it.

One of my former students, Pete, read a snippet of his piece (the readers only had 2 minutes to read!), and it’s funny– I think I know now, how a proud father feels at his daughter’s ballet recital, or his son’s soccer game where the son gets a goal.