Work Text:
Reading & book signing with awarded poet Todd Anderson.
Saturday, September 28, 1974; at 1PM
Todd Anderson will read from his book, Lives of Glass, a collection of his scattered previous works, compiled for the first time in a single volume. Anderson graduated from Welton Academy and published his first poem during his university years at Dartmouth. He will talk about the process of selection and his method of writing and will have copies of his book to sell and sign. This is a free program at the Kellogg-Hubbard Library.
Todd hasn’t written the snippet for the local newspaper (he has read it twenty-one times). He doesn’t like the use of ‘awarded’ and he doesn’t have a method systematised enough to talk about it, which is the same as not having any; and he still hates speaking in front of an audience—he doesn’t hate it, and it is fine once the first words are out and a clear path is established between his brain and his mouth, but his heart beats faster and he gets sweaty and two hands don’t seem like a lot of hands yet they suddenly feel like too many to be able to keep them occupied while looking natural and nonchalant; and this was his idea. This, the book signing, the sort of open symposium, the saving of a seat in the front row that’s now occupied.
He’s in a small office adjacent to the main event, standing and waiting, a fictitious backstage provided by the library with a big and cleared window the audience is polite enough to ignore until the clock strikes and it’s his turn to come out. He has a great view from there. All the seats are taken—it’s not a very large room—with a few latecomers forming a thin wall at the back, and Todd feels grateful. He knows he has a steady reader base, nothing extraordinary, but countrywide. He has received letters from Canada and even the United Kingdom, his poems being enjoyed overseas one of his greatest accomplishments. They’re an eclectic exhibit. A moustached man in a QUEEN t-shirt changes seats so a shy boy barely reaching his teen years can sit next to his church-going mom, a warm nod in acknowledgement, while two girls patiently waiting in the previous row take their time to silently defy anyone who dares to stare at their held hands. Todd thinks about outgrowing a school uniform and learning to shave, about wooden desks and nightly escapades and yelling at the snow. A nice lady from the library announces his name, then, and people clap.
He doesn’t dare to look once he’s out there, in front of everyone. He unfocuses his eyes as a democratic and cowardly way of avoiding looking directly at the first row, terrified of bumping into the blank stare of unrecognition—it’s been close to fifteen years, a lifetime when they met, for a metamorphosis crammed into a few months at a preppy boarding school.
Todd would like to say that our souls are made of melted memories, that a broken heart can still be mended by warmth and heat or made again from scratch, that fragility can be enduring and translucence proud; he may even dare to make a dirty joke about the benefits of blowing, to keep the glass metaphor, depending on the audience’s response—his whole speech is dissected into small notes, neat and square, typewritten and highlighted in the blue ink of a cheap pen he found in his coat. That’s what he has prepared. He compiled some more in case no one asked any questions, a clock in front of him to measure each portion of the speech to a nice pace without taking too much from the final round, where to make pauses and where to quickly retake it where he left it after a joke that doesn’t land. He wants to inspire them, and energise them, and tell them that life is worth living.
Instead he says,
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for coming.” He clears his throat. “I wanted to start by addressing something I know has puzzled my readers from the beginning—I have heard conversations, and theories, and sometimes you have even asked me directly. My very first poem, “A Verse Contributed”—I thought it a very good title, at the time, very clever; you will forgive my youth. I never changed it in later revisions, for I feel it is important to remember our past selves as they were, and not embellish them or lie about them; and so it opens the book with the same dedication it had the first time it was published: to them. Short and easy, and I know what it means. And for a time I thought, a little mystery is fine, people like mysticism, no one needs to know. I’ve heard some hypothesis: it means my parents, maybe, who I guess were loving in their own way; but, though a logical conclusion, I’m afraid that’s not it. Others have ventured it may refer to the poets that came before me, whose verses permeated my skin and nested in my lungs from stubborn exposure. I like that one, and in a way it’s true—but not entirely. I liked it vague, and I still like it anonymous. Personal. But then I thought—my first collection, my first book, and I’m proud of it, and I’d like people to know. To know them, to know what was behind it all. I hope they don’t mind.”
Todd looks around, avoiding the front corner.
“One of them is here today. He probably won’t know how much that means to me, which is fine, I could picture him dusting off old yearbooks trying to remember who Todd Anderson was—I must have been a student of his, why else would a thirty-something-year-old poet be contacting him, daring to address him as dear acquaintances! This had three possible outcomes in my mind. First, a sort of neutral acknowledgement, the one I thought was the most likely; in which he recalled my name and a blurry, possibly black-and-white version of my face, and decided to come out of curiosity. This would be enough for me, knowing he got to listen. Then, a terrible outcome would have been like this: he remembered why he couldn’t find me in any yearbook. He would have realised there was a year missing, or maybe he already knew it, never forgiven; and would hate me for getting him fired. Well, that’s not true. His memory is not so distorted that I think he would blame us, me, for what happened. Age has also given me enough perspective to channel that guilt into courage and stand my ground, now; and understand we were then, still, essentially kids. But maybe he would have politely declined, unsure how to face me, and it would have been his right.”
Todd swallows and drowns in anxiety and dares to look at the reserved seat at the front row and he’s smiling warmly, warmly and a bit mischievous, and Todd’s eyes get watery and he pretends they’re itchy and that makes his throat coarse. The smile reaches his eyes and for a moment it looks like he’s about to chuckle, about to dare him to keep going, to keep spinning with his eyes closed and voice proud. He’s older, sure, with a greyed beard and the satisfied air of someone grateful for being around, but Todd’s spirit laughs and his shoulders feel less heavy, less constrained, and he also smiles.
“Of course, I wished for the third option. This one implies a higher level of remembrance and supposes a welcoming heart, a sense of pride and satisfaction in his own creation, a scenario in which he not only knew of my career as a writer but also may have read (and liked!) some of my poems. The liking is a nice touch, for every lost soul wants to be recognised by their guiding mentor, but ultimately irrelevant—this is not about me.”
There’s a plastic bottle of water on the stand before him, thankfully, and Todd gives it a couple of sips. It is about him, even if he hasn’t lied.
“I was unimportant, as a kid, and had nothing important to say. The problem wasn’t my age, you see, and I would have ended up an unimportant adult later in life, with nothing important to say. The problem wasn’t money, either, nor intelligence or fame or love; it’s not that kind of importance. Well, it is a little bit about love. It is mostly about love, really, in its broader sense—about love for yourself, and nature, and humankind. The problem was that I thought I was unimportant. Then I entered class one day and a madman told me I needed passion to live, and drive to create, and that I had a uniqueness to myself that would better the world. He said that to everybody. I thought, sure, some people are like that. What do I have to contribute? But he insisted. He gave us names, and stories, and emotions, not because they were celebrated; but because they were true. We didn’t even have to be good, just raw—from the gut. He dared us to be curious. He mocked us, he cheered for us, he laughed out loud and got teary-eyed and crept behind his desk ready to scare us; he was in love with literature and art and life. That was eye-opening to me, I had never met anyone passionate enough to be a fool. It was—it is—liberating, if you allow yourself to feel. I just want him to know” Todd says, looking directly at Mr Keating, “that he was the spark. That he opened the world to us, to me, and every word I write can be traced back to that first assignment where my voice was born. It existed before, sure, as a repressed embryonic idea of something larger, purer; then he shaped it into sound and I nurtured it. I gave it my name.”
Mr Keating nods to himself, either proud or honoured or shy or everything at the same time; the gentlest face Todd has ever known beaming with fulfilment. It is a bit overwhelming, to be so openly vulnerable before a holy man. Not holy, but—whatever secular equivalent there is, if there is one. Fatherly, maybe. Good.
“This is your work.”
Todd pauses then, briefly, clears his throat of any residual tremor and allows himself a moment of triumph. The rest of the audience—for a second he forgot there was an audience—peeks curiously at the front row, hopeful and brave, and it is only Mr Keating’s self-contained mirth overflowing beyond the corner of his eye that keeps Todd grounded. He breathes, in, out. Just a little bit further. He looks ahead to the horizon, to no one in particular, and lets his stomach carry the burden of what’s to come.
“He was only half of it, though, a teacher can only reach so far. He opened the door and hoped we would pass through, under our own terms, searching for questions to ask and paths to tread; and we walked through mud and stained our boots trying to follow. But it was good, it was enriching: we had each other, we built a community. A bunch of young men, too self-aware to be called kids, playing philosophers; scholars of a life we hadn’t yet lived, and are still exploring.” A note too high, here, too conspicuous. He shouldn’t have dismissed his carefully crafted speech so quickly, unable now to foresee his own knives. “They were all important. But there was one of them, as is often the case, with whom I spent most of my time. I’m sorry to say he’s not here with us, today, although I carry him with me always—maybe against his will. I don’t know. He shot himself when we were seventeen.”
There’s an audible gasp and the mom looks worried at her kid, who’s attentively listening, transfixed not out of morbid curiosity but a tear in his still childish conception of the world. Todd appreciates the breathing space, too short and contained to be called an interruption, and wets his lips.
“I’ve made a conscious effort to forget the date he died, in vain—that’s not what I want to talk about, it’s not what I want to remember. I only knew him for a year. I changed schools and arrived a scared, shy boy, somewhat angry; self-isolating, anxious, and ashamed of my own perceived mediocrity. This is how he met me. It was a bit—challenging, at first, to be included so thoroughly; to be teased and expected and invited, but you have to understand: he was important. He was a king, a freedom fighter, golden Alexander the Great; and I was me. We all followed him like maniacs—not the blind cult of the leader; but to be inspired, to believe we could also do anything and everything, to be brave and rebellious and genuine. I looked at him and felt the confidence of the sailor guided by the lighthouse, he looked at me and saw Odysseus coming home. He did all this in a neat haircut and ironed school uniform, all very proper, buttoned-up collar with its regulation tie, Ivy League rhetoric, and sometimes thin-rimmed glasses. High cheekbones, strong eyebrows. You should have seen him” Todd jokes, bashful, and a distant giggling can be heard from the audience.
He drinks again, his throat dry and his hand steady, self-possessed after years of introspection.
“He was my friend, I thought, at first. Then one day—a perfectly regular, ordinary day—he burst into our room holding a sheet of paper. He had decided he wanted to be an actor, and I was trying to write. He knelt before me, excited, placing the ad on my lap; and I dismissed him. He jumped around struggling to make me understand, full of life and hope and sunlight, performing his most inner cravings for my eyes only. Then I said something dull, dull and sensible and gutless and soul-crushing, and he got angry—disappointed, maybe, but not for long. He was dangerous that way. I was determined to be the voice of reason and he wanted to fill my head with fire and indignation and beauty, he wanted me to be an active member of our little club of lost boys and beatniks, and he had this preposterous idea that I could simply do things. That was the scariest part. I tried explaining that some people are built differently and that’s fine, that’s how the world is made, and it cannot be changed: that was me, and I could take care of myself. He looked at me in silence, black lightning piercing my armour, and spoke an insolent ‘no’.” Todd scoffs. “What? Then he smirked and said ‘no’ again. He smirked and said ‘no’ and my heart grew thorns and the briar hugged my lungs and my sense of decorum bled the tears of a Virgin’s passion; and before I could breathe again he took the poem I had been trying to write from my hands and started jumping around the room, laughing, making me laugh and jump around behind him. I had known what the Romantics meant before, I had studied them and seen many movies and generally lived in the world, but in that moment I could have written them. It wasn’t an explosion, it wasn’t even sudden. People talk about butterflies but mine were dragons with spurs in their wings, patient, yearning; and they weren’t in my stomach but crouched onto my ribs, drinking the gold that leaked from my heart every time he talked to me. He permeated my every second.”
Todd stops, feeling his voice heavy and thick, and wets his lips. He’s glad he’s doing this on a smaller scale, where he can see the faces from the last row: he’s a student again, climbing the teacher’s desk. Mr Keating winks, cheeky, and Todd exhales a laugh.
“I never told him, but he read my poems. They weren’t even about him, but what you have to understand is that I hadn’t been sure I had anything important to say before. I hadn’t known I could contribute. That he chose me as his friend was like being touched by grace, drowned in ideas crawling to get out, and I am—I feel like—a legacy.”
Todd looks down at his book, resting next to the plastic bottle. Speaking to the audience but looking directly at Mr Keating, and thinking about one very specific name, he puts his right hand over the printed words of the cover.
“This is for you.”