Generation Gap
by John Paul Sherman
Along the wall of Time appeared
A singular niche: the space of a minute.
Trowel of skill,
Mortar of will,
This appropriate brick I placed within it.
A Note from Robert Malcolm:
John Paul Sherman was a buddy of mine whom I met and roomed with during most of my stay in Milwaukee, Wisconsin during the end of the 1960's. A few years younger than me, he then worked at Evenrude Motors, spending his off hours crafting his poetry ... as I recall, he was born and raised in Milwaukee, having never left the city until he and I, one time, took a trip to Chicago -- a very vivid and exciting experience to him, though I do not remember it affecting his poetry in any manner. Indeed, it was an interesting contrast between us, he being in essence the provincial living one, and I the world traveler. Being in Milwaukee, he had the means of knowing much of the world and what went on, just never the inclination of wanting at that time to actually explore it ... at least until I encouraged him to come on that Chicago outing, thus whetting his appetite for more travel -- a few years after I had left the city and him for warmer climes, he finally upped and left to go to San Francisco, where it seems, after years of unsuccessful struggling to gain poetic recognition, he disappeared around 1980, surfacing only briefly and reluctantly in early 90's -- due to my ex's persistent searching -- to inform me, through her, that he was no longer the person I knew, and that it was best to remember him as he was, through the poetry I possessed. Then he disappeared once more, for good ....
He had one book published, Sing Me a Sky, by Bridgeberg Books, in 1978. So far as I have been able to determine, he published no others ... nor, for that matter, much if any more poems than the ones gathered by me during the 70's, when he and I coresponded thru a volume of letters that covered many philosophical issues and discussions on compositions of poetry and paintings. It's not much to go on to gain some idea what kind of person he was, other than to say he was quiet, serious, and displayed his essence through his works -- which was how he always thought of himself anyway. Perhaps, then, the best first impression I can provide would be to quite the introduction to his book:
"Poetry is necessary to me. Because it synthesizes so much -- sound, rhythm, image, idea -- because it compresses and orders these elements so rigorously, and because it relies on slender suggestion so often, poetry demands an unusual intensity of awareness. This can prove strenuous, especially since the odds for disappointment are imposing. But when a poem catches fire for me, when those emotional fuses are lit, it can deliver a powderkeg impact. And the energy released makes me feel that I can pluck a star -- or a truth -- as readily as a flower, and hold each in the palm of my consciousness. This is the power of poetry.
"But such power implies an aim. If a poem is to be significant, there must be some expression of what I hold as essentially valid or valuable. For me, the highest potential of poetry is as a song of affirmation. This may assert itself in many forms, with varying degrees of explicitness -- yet what matters is an underlying recognition that fundamental alternatives exist for man, that one must sustain oneself by choice and action, and that the result is nothing less than the content and quality of one's own soul. What I seek to celebrate is not that this is the best of all possible worlds, but that this is a world where the best is possible.
"That is why poetry is necessary to me. What remains is to discover if the following is necessary to you"
-John Paul Sherman, 1978
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