How Poetry Saved My Street

jennifer berry

Jennifer Berry is a nationally produced playwright. She has written fifteen plays; five screenplays; and a children’s book,0 “The Prayer Box.” Her essays and articles have been published in “Ms. Magazine,” “Howl Round,” and several other publications. Also, as a Women’s Studies Professor at California State University, Northridge, Berry writes about female empowerment, community building, and intimate relationships.

I felt despair! I missed everything and everyone!

The Mayor’s daily announcements about the upsurge, the emergency room doctor crying inside her car. I was angry and afraid! I had the biggest year of my career as a playwright and filmmaker, only to have the theaters close and the film festivals stop.

As a mother, my twins’ school was closed: housework doubled and homeschooling became a way of life.

It was March 2020. Covid was raging, and my heart was breaking.

When I get lonely, afraid, anxious or stuck, I reach for poetry. 

The first poem I read to my street was “Kindness” by Naomi Shihab Nye. The first lines of that poem are:

“Before you know what kindness is, you must lose things,

Feel the future dissolve in a moment…”

That’s how everyone felt during Covid, “that the future dissolved in a moment.”

What kind of future would I have? Would my twins have? They were supposed to be graduating in June, off to high school. 

I knew everyone was hurting. That everyone was burned out on Netflix. Yet how could I connect with people off screen and on point?

April 2020. I realized it was National Poetry Month. Therefore, I decided to create “Poetry Fridays.” I decided that each Friday night at 7pm, I would go out on my front doorstep and read one poem for the neighbors.

I inserted brightly colored fliers in every mailbox that said: “In honor of National Poetry Month, please join me and my family each Friday during April for a heartfelt poem.” 

Even though I lived on a small, quiet street, I didn’t know all my neighbors. Like most suburban areas in California, we exchanged pleasantries, greeted each other, and commented on each other's dogs. 

I recalled a stanza in Robert Frost’s poem “Mending a Wall,” where the writer tries to break the barriers between himself and his neighbor only to be met with his neighbor's resolve “that good fences make good neighbors.”

I didn’t want any more fences or walls, borders, or boundaries. I wanted a community!

The first Friday of April arrived. At exactly 7 pm, I stepped out my door. And to my surprise, there were a few neighbors waiting.  

Jerry and Rebecca: two empty nesters who kept a bird feeder in their front yard, and Dino, a reclusive bachelor who often blasted rock music when his car pulled into his driveway. 

I cleared my throat and read the poem, “Kindness.” 

After I read the poem, these polite neighbors clapped. Then, we chatted about the challenges of Covid. 

The second week, I did it again. Apparently other neighbors had heard our poetry, and a few more neighbors showed up.

Tired mothers of toddlers exited their already taxed homes as I read  “For calling the Spirit Back from Wandering the Earth in its Human Feet” by Joy Harjo. 

Danielle, a first-time pregnant mother, told our neighbors how she knew she would have a baby with her husband, Mike, after she heard him read a Mary Oliver poem years ago when they were dating.

Jerry and Rebecca told us about how they moved into the neighborhood in the late 1980s after they fell in love. I learned Dino was a set designer. 

In the third week, we had two more sets of neighbors. Jack, a teacher and his wife, Zohreh, with their son Keon. Also, Michelle and Jon and their baby.  

I read from Christian Wiman’s  “Every Riven Thing.”

As the spring sun set and after the stanzas were heard, neighbors exchanged recommendations and recipes. They asked about each other's weeks. 

They had paused for poetry!  Poetry saved us from our solitude! Neighbors were becoming friends!

The last week of April, I read a poem of my own. Jerry and Rebecca brought their ukuleles and began to play as I read my words. 

The neighborhood lingered into the night while the toddlers played kickball at a safe Covid distance. Then something unexpected happened. 

All the neighbors asked if we could keep “Poetry Fridays.” So we did!

Week after week, I entered the street with a new poem. And each week our community grew more connected. We formed a neighborhood group text. When our twins’ June graduation rolled around, my twins got to walk up and down the street while one neighbor piped “Pomp and Circumstance” from their loudspeaker. Other neighbors made signs saying “Congratulations”.

Later, when Jack suddenly had a stroke, there was a meal train and child care for Keon. When Michelle’s father died, we got flowers from Renee, a neighbor who was a florist. She accidentally came across our weekly Poetry nights while walking her dog. 

We had our poetry nights every Friday until the fall weather descended. 

Our love and community was born out of poetry. Covid is now in remission, but our Poetry month is still a street tradition. 

Every Friday in April, I still appear on the street with words and wisdom from some of our greatest writers. 

Anyone can use anything to bring your street together.

Finger Painting, lemonade tasting, or any activity that breaks up the mundane.

Here are a few things to remember before you start.

1. Everyone wants a close connected street. 

2. Enthusiasm is contagious. 

3. We want and need to know our neighbors. 

4. Poetry or any art is in its essence a gift. Why not offer it to those in close proximity.

5. Solitude and isolation may feel good, but it is mostly a bad habit that everyone wants to break.

We are on this planet, this neighborhood, this street for only a short time. You might as well know your neighbors and love them too.