Post-pandemic shutdown it sounds quaint, but after I retired, I tried to find face-to-face poetry-writing classes within 50 miles of my home, without success. But one day, there it was, a weekly class from The Mill writing school in Appleton, called Lyric Poetry. It didn’t matter that I had no idea what lyric poetry was. Did it require a lyre? If so, I would find one.
After arriving at the Neenah Public Library for the class, I couldn’t find the room. The front desk sent me to an open area near the central staircase, where, after standing self-consciously among a sea of chattering adolescents, I discovered a small white board propped up on easel covered with cramped writing.
When an older man appeared nearby, his wild white hair, sensitive approach, and blue plaid and denim clothing signalled someone creative and intellectual, like the professors I had worked with. He asked if I were enrolled in the fiction class and when I told him it was poetry I wanted, pointed to a study room straight ahead where two people sat deep in conversation. He told me that my teacher might appear intimidating, but not to worry. He knew his poetry and knew how to teach it.
It’s laughable now to imagine that anyone would find Tom Montag intimidating. He has become a friend and mentor. Yes, he’s tall, but not much taller than I am. Yes, he’s unlike other people. Poetry lives in him. He lives in service to poetry. As a student, I found him enthusiastic, helpful, generous. Any line or poem he reads aloud, even those written by students, is elevated. Still, in the first few class sessions he treated the two of us, both women, with trepidation. It wasn’t that he expected us to know poetry academically–its movements, styles, forms, journals, publishers, poets, titles. He wanted to know if we could relate to the poetic moment–recognize it, transcribe it, give it breath, music, movement. Without being mystical about it, I understood he was looking for signs that poetry had chosen us. In other words, I learned that poetry involved something more than talent. It involved a state of mind, required being present to life, one’s surroundings.