The other night I went to hear an Andean ensemble

     play this beautiful music from Peru and Bolivia,

                   and the composer introduced this one piece by saying

not to expect something polished but more 

                   like “a samba party at your house,” meaning a party

                   with barbecue and “stupidly cold” beer and lots of

         actual percussion instruments, sure, but anybody

                   can pick up anything—pot, pan, kettle, jug, jar—

and whack it with fork, spoon, spork, spatula,

                   gravy ladle or whatever else comes to hand,

                   including your hand. That’s how we write poems.

         That’s how we read poems if the poet has written

                   them properly. Poems should be loud. Paintings

should be splashy. Ever stay at a chain motel?

                   Ever ask yourself why the rugs and bedspreads

                   all look the same, all shades of gray and brown

         and beige in patterns that are stippled and swirly?

                   Answer: so a child or somebody who’s been out

celebrating can upchuck on them and it won’t show.

                   And movies should be scary. What’s the scariest

                   thing in a scary movie? Not a gun. Not a knife.

         Not a pair of shoes sticking out from under a curtain.

                   Not a lit fuse, leaky boat, ex-girlfriend boiling a bunny

on the back of the stove, zombie, vampire,

                   werewolf, cannibal—not a cannibal nun, even.

                   No, the scariest thing is a pair of eyes glancing quickly

         at a rear-view mirror and away and then back again

                   and widening as they see a pair of headlights getting

closer and widening even more as the headlights

                   get closer still. Now that’s scary. Why? Because

                   you know the person in the second car is not some

         good Samaritan who wants to tell the driver

                   of the first car that their taillight’s out. You know

what’s also scary is not when someone is making

                   coffee or drinking coffee but saying to someone

                   else, “You want some coffee?” and starting to pour it

         because that coffee’s going to end up being thrown

                   into somebody else’s face. Chekhov said that if you

have a gun on the wall of Act I of a play, it needs to

                   go off in Act III. Not only is that a hundred times

                   truer when it comes to a boiling pot of joe but

         it’s going to happen a lot faster as well.  See?

                   Simple stuff: car mirror, coffee. A tiny thing can

go off like a howitzer shell if you handle it right.

         And that makes it easier for you, the artist, doesn’t it?

                   This isn’t the Manhattan Project. Just go for a walk,

         find something interesting, pick it up, take it home.

                   Or leave it for someone else. They’ll find it. Nothing in

this world is wasted. Whitman says, “I find letters from

                   God  dropped in the street.” Maybe they’re from you.

David Kirby teaches at Florida State University. His latest books are a poetry collection, The Winter Dance Party, Poems 1983-2023, and a textbook modestly entitled The Knowledge: Where Poems Come From and How to Write Them. Kirby is the author of Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which the Times Literary Supplement described as “a hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense.” He is currently on the board of Alice James Books.