The Typewriter Poet & Typewriter Prayers

photo: Ryan Nance

This was important enough for me to pause the futbol match...write...and share. 

This blog is in response to a lovely thank you I just received from a girl who goes by the name of Billimarie, I call her the Typewriter Poet. She also wrote THIS blog about the recent Poesia Para La Gente Metro reading we all did. It includes the awesome poem she typed up along the journey! 

I forgot exactly how we met but I do know it was on Facebook. After looking her up I invited her to join us on the poetry train, because she embodied what Poesia Para La Gente is all about.

Here's the thing, the Typewriter Poet doesn't need to perform a poem, she doesn't need to be heard (in the conventional way), nor is she interested in promoting herself. She only wants to type poems for people, for free. Spending time with her on the train made me think that maybe she wants to form a road of communication between symbols and her internal voice that's already communicating with our collective conscience. And then I realized she's already been doing that. And isn't that the nature of poetry? You meet her and realize how calm, collected, peaceful she seems, not exactly your everyday poet. (relax, it's a generalization!) There doesn't seem to be a struggle, but I could be wrong. But then again, she doesn't need a struggle, she's found her purpose, or so it seems. Imagine doing what you love, doing it day-in and day-out. Now imagine if what you're doing happens to be a ritual of non-verbal communication in a language of symbols, with your community - as an act of altruistic, free expression. Imagine if what you're doing is praying...with the community, free of doctrine and with a smile. Imagine that. 

The Typewriter Poet carries her pink typewriter just about everywhere and writes for free, for anybody, at anytime. She's even taken her typewriter on "tour" throughout the Pacific Northwest. She does this for the love of poetry. And maybe for the love of people. I'm not quite sure yet. She has nothing to sell, only to save, though she doesn't know it. She's saving the art and spirit of the voiceless word freshly strung together by ribbon and ink onto paper, spoken-less, accessible and free...

On behalf of typewriters, and those who choose to redefine what it means to have a voice, thank you Ms. Typewriter Poet. 

follow her adventures at http://www.typewriterpoetry.com