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Author and Novelist Glynn Young

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Poetry at Work, Chapter 1: How to Recognize a Poet

January 14, 2019 By Glynn Young Leave a Comment

Poetry at Work

If there is such a thing as a poetic movie, the 2016 film Paterson is perhaps the archetype. The actor Adam Driver plays a bus driver named Paterson, who listens to the conversations of his passengers, colleagues, and friends, and to his own interior conversations, and writes poetry. He works in Paterson, New Jersey, and the man Paterson and the town Paterson eventually come to be seen as of the same essence. Person becomes place becomes person. Poetry constitutes a sizeable portion of the dialogue.

Not coincidentally, Paterson also happens to be the hometown of the modernist poet William Carlos Williams, who practiced medicine there. Over a period of decades, he wrote a five-book collection entitled – what else? – Paterson (among a lot of other works). Williams was a physician, and he was a poet. Like the bus driver in the movie, Williams recognized and recorded the poetry of his daily work.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Literary Life.

Filed Under: Poetry at Work, Writing Tagged With: Literary Life, poet, poetry, Poetry at Work, William Carlos Williams, work, workplace

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Meet the Man

An award-winning speechwriter and communications professional, Glynn Young is the author of three novels and the non-fiction book Poetry at Work.

 

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