Throughout girlhood I had a close friend named John. He was a couple of years older than I was, deeply kind and intelligent, and more curious about the world than anyone I knew. I learned things from him merely by being in his presence; every conversation was a delight and a surprise and made me see myself and others in a new way. He had a beautiful sturdy hiking stick he had carefully burnt and carved himself and a guitar he named “Dionysus” (I was a Greek myth nerd as a kid and, of course, absolutely loved this). Our parents had—still have, although I no longer go there—a cabin on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille, each tucked into a remote forested nook called Kilroy Bay.
It was my favorite place, and John my favorite person.
As we grew into teenagers, my parents would make comments about us being romantically entwined, but our friendship wasn’t like that—it was magical and, something I really needed more than I even realized at that age, platonic and peaceful and respectful. It was a rare safe space.
One warm August almost three decades ago now—I would be starting at the University of Washington and John was already a student at Princeton—we swam under the stars and talked and sang songs late into the night. At one point, as we dripped lake water onto the splintering dock, John jumped to his feet, the night glowing all around him, and recited from heart a poem:
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.
Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime
Though this might take me a little time.
I’d never heard someone recite a poem from memory before, not outside of a forced classroom setting, and certainly not in a social situation. Thrilled, I asked John a litany of questions—who wrote the poem? What was the title? Where had he first read it? When had he memorized it? Could he recite it again? And from his answers I learned it was not the only poem he had memorized; he knew several. I made him recite poem after poem, absolutely enthralled with my friend’s ability to orate aloud our language’s most beautiful arrangements.
The next time I visited a bookstore, I purchased a small hardcover volume of W.H. Auden poems, which included, of course, the first poem I’d heard John recite, “The More Loving One.” Even now when I’m lucky enough to see a starry night, the first stanza of the poem comes to me in all of its bluntness and humor, and, when times are very hard, I get the phrase thundering through my skull, “indifference is the very least / we have to dread from man or beast,” and I ruminate on the grief of a starless sky. Over the years I’ve learned more about W.H. Auden, of his poetry, yes, but also of his activism. In one of my very favorite dissections of his poetry, writer Elissa Gabbert states, “The preoccupations of [Auden’s] work…were social and political — the rising threat of totalitarianism, the evils of capitalism.” It is no surprise my friend John adhered to Auden’s poetry—he, like Auden, is a poet and humanitarian.
John and I have a rare lifelong friendship where we are lucky enough to now love one another’s spouses and rejoice in seeing our children be together. He lives in Cape Town and works in London, too, so our visits are rare and precious. Years ago in Walla Walla, at John’s wedding to Mpho, a physician from Lesotho as brilliant and compassionate as he is (someone else I learn from every time I’m with her), I saw my husband and John embracing and laughing wildly over something, and my heart soared (this, humorously, was the first time they’d met—Sam and John loved one another immediately). A few years later, on another warm Lake Pend Oreille summer, I ran a writing workshop for our children, and we hosted a lamp-lit sunset celebration in the trees, our sons and daughters—Keneoue, Mohale, Henry, and Louise—reading their original poems and stories aloud.
And lately over email John and I have been sending one another poems. Just this week he sent me an Adrienne Rich poem, “Aunt Jennifer’s Tigers,” and I responded with a poem from Muriel Rukeyser. Looking back at our emails, we’ve shared poems by Frank O’Hara, Lucia Perillo, Natalie Diaz, Diane Seuss, and Nikki Giovanni, who John wrote me about after visiting an Alvin Ailey Dance exhibit at the Whitney. I continue to learn from him. I hope to discuss poetry with this friend for my whole life.
I’m writing about John for National Poetry Month because our friendship is emblematic of what poetry is capable of, how poems help deepen our relationships to the self, to one another, and to the world around us. Sometimes poems take us deeply inward, and sometimes they ferry us elsewhere, maybe deeper into a starry night. John’s friendship has been an influential gift in my life. I’m seeing now as I write about him that my other close friendships also honor what his friendship honors: Care for language, care for one another, care for the larger world around us. John has been a lodestar for me in this way.
I’m including a list below of newly published poetry books available on Spokane Public Library shelves. You can find several of Spokane’s most renowned poets in the I Sing the Salmon Home anthology published by Washington State Poet Laureate alumnus Rena Priest (mentioned below). And don’t miss our upcoming Inland Northwest Poetry Salon—twelve poetry workshops occurring on May 17th at the Liberty Park Library. Learn more and register for the workshops here.
Black Girl You Are Atlas by Renée Watson
Poemhood, our black revival: history, folklore & the Black experience: a young adult poetry anthology edited by Amber McBride, Taylor Byas, & Erica Martin
Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology edited by Rigoberto González
Modern Poetry: Poems by Diane Seuss
The Best American Poetry 2024 guest edited by Mary Jo Salter; David Lehman, series editor
Something about Living by Lena Khalaf Tuffaha
Love and Need: The Life of Robert Frost’s Poetry by Adam Plunkett
This Is the Honey: An Anthology of Contemporary Black Poets, edited with an introduction by Kwame Alexander
A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker: 1925-2025, edited by Kevin Young
New and Selected Poems by Marie Howe
Forest of Noise: Poems by Mosab Abu Toha
I Sing the Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State edited by Rena Priest
The Collected Poems of Delmore Schwartz edited by Ben Mazer
Life on Earth by Dorianne Laux
Woke Up No Light by Leila Mottley
