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| Poet Joseph Green-Bishop |
I first met the poet, Joseph Green-Bishop in the early 1970s, when we were both living in Cambridge. Some evenings, he would drop by the grey-shingled house I shared with my roommate Jackie in Central Square. I was a graduate student at the time, but also hosted a fifteen minute public affairs program on Boston radio station, WBCN. In the evenings, I arranged interviews for the radio program. Joe dropped by late one afternoon. He, Jackie and I were sitting in the kitchen, when the telephone rang. The interview I had scheduled for that night's radio program had just fallen through and I was desperate to fill the slot. Seeing my distress, Joe offered to read his poetry. My heart sank. I didn't like poetry, and up until that time I had never bothered to read any of Joe's. In fact, I prided myself for producing programs around steel-edged themes, like the volatile Middle East, the Black Panthers, guerrilla wars in Southern Africa. But, I had to go on the air with something, with less than an hour and a half to figure out what. So, I accepted Joe's offer. As he read into the studio's microphone about love, and loss, soul beauty and kindness, the phones at WBCN lit up. Within ten minutes, the lines became jammed with callers, asking for him to re-read a poem or expressing gratitude for capturing what was in the listener's heart. Before that night, no one had ever phoned into that program of mine.
Having pursued successful careers in business and public service, Joe has at long last returned to his poetry. So, it is with delight and pleasure that I give you one of my favorite poems from his soon-to-be-released new collection, Simply for You.
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