Confessions of an Early 1970s Hippie – Poems, Love Unrequited, and Losing a Flat of Beer

I once had one of those eye contact moments with a woman in this hall.

She was on the other side of the door and I saw her through the door window. I wrote a poem about her and it was published in the Bruns under my poet name, thomas. It went something like this:

a second’s regret

I saw her through a window
just a fleeting glimpse
of something that might have been
had I paused a moment longer
at least as long as something
pulsing strong inside me
long enough to pause and glance
and see her face again

I never saw her again.

But that’s not why I don’t write poetry anymore.

This is the Document Delivery Room in the Harriet Irving Library.

In 1971 it was a study hall with tables and armchairs and an almost cosmopolitan view of the outside world through the windows at night. I have no idea what that means. Just a feeling I had then.

One night, I was studying (yes, I did find the occasional moment to study in 1971) when a beautiful woman in a blue sweater (I think her name was Bob) sat down across the room from me and I wrote this poem about her:

the girl in the blue sweater

the girl in the blue sweater
studying across from me
is beautiful

I think I’ll write a poem about her

….

a while ago I started to write
about the girl across from me

I stared and searched for details
and pulled them apart
like petals from a flower

leaving nothing to write about

…

if the Brunswickan should publish
this “almost” poem
and if the girl in the blue sweater
should read it, I hope
she reads just the first three lines

I never saw her again either.

And yes, the Bruns published the poem.

This is the door to the office of the Bruns.

They used to publish my poems. One of my roommates told me that getting my poems published in the Bruns meant nothing because they would publish anything, so we bet a flat of beer on whether or not they would publish the worst thing I’d ever written. That turned out to be a one-act play I’d written in high school. I submitted it knowing more than I knew the color of my eyes after a three-day excursion into Purple Microdot Land (Hint: red) that they wouldn’t publish it. There was no way they would publish it. Nobody would publish that piece of crap.

The Bruns did. It filled a whole page. It cost me a flat of beer. I stopped sending poems to the Bruns.

About twenty years later, I came across the play while I was doing some research. I should have submitted something else. The play wasn’t all that bad. But on the bright side, my roommate shared the beer with the rest of us, so it turned out OK in end.

Last year (or was it this year?) I put together a collection of the poems I wrote in the 70s and turned them into an ebook that you can download free by clicking here. You’ll get to see firsthand why I write prose.

I always thought I would write a poem about the daycare that used to be here:

It was in a long old shack left over from the flood of veteran students that poured in after WW 2. In the fall and spring, when the weather was mild and the windows were open in Tilley Hall, we could hear the sound of children laughing in the playground in front of the daycare building throughout our classes. It was almost like a reminder of why we were there. Too bad they tore it down.

Someday when I’m not concerned about lowering the world-Quality-Rating-Of-Books-And-Writing-And-Stuff, I just might write that poem about the daycare in the middle of the UNB campus. Maybe an orange penguin will stop by to inspire me.

Next: Places to sleep at UNB (coming Monday, September 11)