My friendship with Ian McRae, a shearer and poet, started with me pestering and mentoring him to keep at his poetry and believe in it.

He and I slugged it out for a year, or so and then Maria joined the fray. We rarely saw him or spoke with him. Then he called up one night and said he was ready to be a poet and acknowledge it and work at it.

I helped him online by looking for poetry clubs; he is in two different poetry groups now and reads his poems regularly in public. And he’s building a website.

We had him over for dinner last night, something we  have been doing regularly lately (he lives in the struggling town of Granville, N.Y., and hauls slate around all day and writes poems during lunch break and at night.)

He loves the idea of suffering in poverty, as so many good poets do.

Ian always has some new ones to show us now (it took nearly three years before he would show us one), and he is no longer dreadfully shy about reading them aloud. He regularly goes to poetry nights at Cafe Lena and  Battenkill Books Poetry Group here in Cambridge another poetry group soon. We had another poet over the house for dinner, and she and Ian talked for a couple of hours about poetry, how poems are written, and what poetry is – discussions he desperately needs and wants to have.

Watching him last night – so confident, happy,  comfortable, sure of himself and his poetry but open to feedback – I almost cried. Maria saw the same thing.

I’ve never seen Ian so happy or confident.

I’m not just a mentor to him any longer or an intimidating nudge; we are friends now. He is his mentor. I’m not a poet and can only offer encouragement; the three of us listened to his poems and talked openly and honestly about them. He very much appreciated that. We all had a fantastic night; Maria and I talked about it this morning and last night.

 

 

Ian is old school, always takes his shoes off before coming into a farmhouse, and always brings some tattered old book of poetry for me to read. He also brings any new poems and reads them – something he was much too nervous to do even six months ago. He isn’t nervous now.

He doesn’t need to bring me anything anymore; I told him his presence is enough, and I know very little about poetry. We need some other people.

I know something about creativity and discipline, and perseverance.

Maria and I are both good at encouraging people, once it’s clear they are serious. Often, they aren’t. Most of the time, it doesn’t work. It’s very difficult to be creative in our society.

Ian always tells me I should come after him if he seems to disappear for a while. “Don’t worry,” I told him, “if I don’t hear from you, I’ll be on your ass screaming. You will not get rid of me easily. I am just as willful as you are and a lot meaner.”

He laughed and gave me a big hug. He is not in the least afraid of me anymore, and once or twice a week, we talk on the phone – hardly anyone else I know talks on the phone anymore – and yak like old-school chums. He told me last night that I was one of the most intimidating people he had ever met. This surprised me.

He says he has trouble making friends, and I have always had trouble making friends. But we seem to each have broken through that with the other. We are friends now, good and cherished friends. Ian is very bright and more articulate than I know. He just needed a kick in the ass.

We’re getting Ian back in a couple of weeks with another poet we know; we can see he almost desperately needs to contact other poets. But for him, the question is no longer whether he should be or can be a poet; it’s about how to be a better poet. That’s a big difference. The best way I can help him now is to get him in touch with some other younger poets. I can do that.

I was also struck by the way Ian looks now and carries himself. He made a point of telling me that he had dropped the skinhead look.  Okay, I said, it never bothered me.

Ian is very different and growing by the day.

The creative spark is burning inside him, and I doubt we’ve reached a milestone. May it never go out.