Welcome to Poetically Yours. Poetically Yours features poems by northern Illinois poets and a few from other states. Today’s featured poet is Susan Goldberg.
Goldberg lives in Rockford, but she grew up on a small farm near a town in Indiana. Goldberg’s sister Jane taught her to read in a tiny classroom--also known as their bedroom--before she started kindergarten. Goldberg said she briefly directed a grade school play, but that venture came to an abrupt halt when the actors complained that she was too bossy. Here’s her poem “The Block Party.”
Posted on the bulletin board at City Hall was an invitation to a neighborhood block party. A writer walking by
saw it and said to herself, “There should be a Writers’ Block Party. It would be a kind of gathering of kindred
spirits who had all given up on their writing.”
“The pen literally would not move itself across the page!” one person would shout. And “My computer freezes up
anytime I sit down to write a story!” another would yell. And on and on it would go, with people arranging
themselves into groups by seniority: “5 to10 days without writing” or “10 plus years of no writing” or “I can’t
remember the last time I wrote a sentence!”
The flyers announcing the party would be devoid of words, as the organizers themselves would be among the
blocked writers. So the flyers would contain only numbers and pictures, and a non-writer would be hired to
write the name of the party at the top of each flyer.
There would be no registration in written form, as that would be too painful for the blocked writers. Only
telephone calls would be accepted. Any registration forms that were filled out in writing would be tossed out, as
that would reveal that they were NOT blocked and therefore would not fit in with the blocked writers who would
otherwise feel even worse about themselves.
And the party would go on for days, until finally someone would leap to their feet and announce that a truck
loaded with Fresh Ideas had just pulled up to the front door. The blocked writers would then rush out onto the
street and find the New Ideas that suited them, and they would begin writing again.
