Alan Graham bio
Poetry is a medium to express truth through aesthetics; to elevate people out of the human condition; to create a window where they can step outside of themselves.
No matter what else is going on in my life, the passion to write is always there, as well as the desire to develop a following. For a number of years, I hosted an open poetry reading series in Los Angeles called “Poetry by Candlelight.” Today, Larry Jaffe and I are co-hosts of the Great Coffee House Poetry Revival series in Dunedin, Florida.
My poetry books include Heart on My Sleeve; Challenge One Assumption; and The Hand Directs the Brush. My current work in progress is titled Stay Dangerous.
I write to celebrate my immortality and yours.
Erika, Save Me
Alexa, do you remember typewriters?
No two machines were just alike, because
the keys were never aligned perfectly.
In the Soviet Union,
if you wanted to publish your poetry,
you’d crank in four sheets of paper
with carbons in between
And hand off the copies
to others who would do the same.
The work was called samizdat,
a forbidden activity.
It means “self-published.”
The KGB (the original fact checkers)
registered every typewriter at the factory
with a sample of the quirky type it produced
and could track you down that way.
Alexa, I didn’t say “qwerty.”
Please don’t autocorrect me.
For the wrong viewpoint,
or maybe just bad poetry,
it was off to the interrogator,
maybe the gulag, who knew?
Yet samizdat outlived that dynasty.
Dr. Zhivago was published this way,
countless typists sweating without pay
so others could read about a poet
who wasn’t political.
And if that was counter-revolutionary,
what did that make the typists?
Dead if they weren’t careful—
Unless they owned an Erika,
a sweet little portable
built in East Germany, smuggled by travelers
back to a country starved for poetry.
Her type samples were not on file,
So you could samizdat to your heart’s content
and stay out of jail.
Alexa, get me an Erika.
Unintelligent Redesign
A cairn is a simple pile of stones,
used to mark a trail or someone’s passing.
How many cairns have built themselves
In all of time everlasting?
I was taught to challenge assumptions,
yet never once was I shown
a life form that designed itself
or a stone that climbed on a stone.
Show me the wall that built itself,
the Taj Mahal that tiled itself,
the body that designed itself
through a chain of blind collisions.
Show me the man who is nothing more
than mud with exceptional luck—
Or spare me the wisdom of experts
who would sell their own souls for a buck.