“...being part chicken, I am stewed in fear — I drink heavy when Butcher Boy’s away and salt my shoulder when  he’s near.” — Ian McRae

One of the most beautiful experiences of my life occurred more than a decade ago when Mary Kellogg, a gifted 81-year-old poet, showed me her poetry; I was the first person in her life to see it.

She and Maria worked together to create five books of her poetry.

Maria and I fell in love with Mary’s poems. She read at every one of our open houses and sold several thousand copies of the poetry collections that we published with her.

Mary became one of our dearest friends, and we miss her.  She sold a ton of her books.

She died last year.

Today, it felt like history is repeating itself.

I feel like I’ve stumbled across yet another highly gifted poet, this time a very young one, who needs a push and some encouragement.

I can do that. Maria can see too. We’ve done it before. We love to do it.

Ian McRae, our 21-year-old sheep shearer from Brandon, Vt. today accepted an invitation I made to him two months ago when he came to shear our sheep to go to the farm and talk with me about moving forward with his poetry, which he had never shown to anyone but his father.

I sensed something extraordinary about Ian – a thoughtfulness and insights rare for his age – and began prodding him about his creativity.

He mostly ignored me or just fled.

This conversation with Ian – his day job is cutting slate at a mill in impoverished Granville, N.Y., was threatening to him, and I tread lightly (for me – Maria says it wasn’t so light).

But I kept at it.

I sensed something extraordinary inside of him that wanted to come out.

Even his sheep shearing was thoughtful. And different.

The idea of showing his work was just too scary for a young kid out of rural Vermont. I told him I started doing it when I was eight.

He just looked at me strangely.

I urged him to share his poetry and bring it into the world – I felt the creative spark burning brightly in him.

This week, he called to say he had been thinking about our conversations and wanted to come and talk about it. He brought a six-pack of beer, but I told him to take it back.

I can’t drink beer. He said he wanted to pay me something for my time.

“Diners dab fat grease; creased mouth folds

expose dulled canines with flirtatious smiles,

stab cuts sacrificial porkbeeflamb and lesser chicken.”

— Ian McRae.

Ian also brought a stack of primarily unfinished poems.

He was terrified to show them to us, but he did. We loved them; we indeed did. I had the same feeling when Mary brought me her poems — this is good, this person has it, he can make it as a poet. He has the spark.

I was ready for Ian, and so was Maria; I had the names of several poetry clubs, book store poetry nights, and virtual poetry readings for him. These, I said, were places he could find community, support, and information.

Like Mary, Ian seems so alone in his poetry; we both urged him to come out and reach out to the world with his poems.

There are friendly and supportive communities and online workshops for poets all over the Internet, which was not available to young poets before.

We will stay in touch with him and support him in every way we can; I was very excited by the poems I read, and so was Maria. I look forward to the day when I can go and see him read in a bookstore or online.

So far, he has only two finished poems. This is one of them:

Midnight:

“8 billion peoples, so many filthy peoples, let us harmonize w/earth dirt.

scrub clean our god and language and fear,

go whooping into this darkness, dancing with what’s left,

touch bareness and laugh if it still stings

scrub me some, take gas fumes, and stale smoke

and desire,

let me dance.

8 billion, my sliver still so quiet.”

I’m not sure, but this poem struck me as being about climate change, something Ian cares deeply about.

Ian was nervous and left after an hour; he left his poems with us. But he settled down; I think he was excited by what he heard; he said he was. Ian is shy and soft-spoken. I am not, alas.

I took a portrait of him as he got into his car. We came close to hugging.

He said he would make contact with a poetry group this week. He said it was frightening to come out, but he realized he had to do it.

He said our talk had planted a seed in his head; it is growing and won’t disappear.

I am so happy Ian is moving forward. I believe he is incredibly gifted, as Mary was, but was paralyzed by the fear of being no good.

Maria and I know from our lives how crucial simple encouragement can be, mainly because we never had much of it.

It is a joy to bring it to someone else; Ian already has his reliable day job.

We both talked to Ian, and he listened to us.

Maria has a gift for calming people and explaining things gently and softly. I have a knack for stirring them up. We make a good team.

At first, Ian said he wanted to wait a while before reaching out; I urged him to move quickly while he was young, living alone and writing poetry all the time.

Sharing his work with other young poets would help him find a voice, something I could never help him with.

At the beginning of this horrific week, I said I was going just to keep on doing good because it is our only weapon. I had a good week.

I told Ian one of my favorite stories from the Kabbalah, the writings of the Jewish mystics. In one story, God tells the people of the world that he has given each of them the creative spark. “The only thing you have to fear from me,” said God, is not using.”

I felt that Ian’s creative spark. Don’t waste it, I said.

Ian has already found a place to read his poetry as I write this. He told me he had found an open mic poetry night in Burlington, Vt.

He was looking for others. How great.

Now he can come out as a poet and share his excellent work with the world. Good for him.

I feel the creative spark very strongly in Ian. It wants to come out.

I think it already has.