Walter Sparks

Wally Sparks is a long time friend of mind. I think we have know each other for about 15 years but I'm really not sure. I'm not even sure how we met although it started out as a business relationship and evolved into a true friendship.
Wally's profession is that of investment adviser and he is everything you would look for: smart, ethical, responsible, and trustworthy.
As so often happens though you meet someone in one context and as you get to know them you find out there is so much more to the person than you realized.
He is a big guy, bigger than me, played tight end at Illinois State a while back, has guns, hunting dogs, loves the outdoors, and......writes poetry.
He and his family have endured their own profound emotional earthquake many years ago, before I really knew him. He was one of the first people to reach out to me last fall. He was, and continues to be, a voice that matters to me.
He is a good example of a person who has used writing as a means of coping with his world. I think part of his writing interest also comes from being an avid reader and history nut, as I am. I think a tendency to write seems to come along with those two behaviors. I knew he wrote poetry as well as prose but I honestly never paid much attention to poetry, his or any other.
I can remember in high school being fascinated with ee cummings (did I punctuate that in the way that would please cummings or am I supposed to do it the proper way?) ((If you don't know who ee cummings is you're just going to have to go look it up)).
Frankly that fascination was probably more to do with his radical style than any substance he may or may not have had.
Nonetheless Wally and I talk fairly regularly, usually a combination of business and personal. After talking for awhile Saturday morning I got an email from him with a poem. Here it is:

Text,
Twitter,
and Facebook.
Add Instagram,
Fast and wonderful,
our communication.
E-Mail, so slow, soon will pass
away and be gone. No more time
spent typing and reading such long tomes.
Just imagine having to write by hand.
Forced to spend time, formulate and to spell.
I can barely recall a key board.
In fact, I remember little.
No worries, just Google it.
I embrace “The Shallows.”
Cocktail Deep Knowledge,
a click away.
With a Link,
my needs
met.

Nicholas Carr is the Author of “The Shallows”

Walter Sparks

Now he starts off his email containing the poem by telling me he chose a double etheree form of writing. Say what?

You might as well talk to me about rebuilding a transmission and start with the type of gears you chose for the job. I have no idea. But in the face of ignorance the one thing you can count on with me is an effort to be less ignorant.

So off we go to the internet for an explanation of double etheree only to find that there is a single, a double, and a reverse available for our writing pleasure:

http://www.poetrymagnumopus.com/index.php?/topic/1204-etheree-double-etheree-reverse-etheree/

I'll save you a little time by explaining that a double etheree starts with a one syllable word and then goes 1-2-3...10 and then reverses. You can see that in his writing.

I like his poem for the substance and the intellectual challenge of figuring out how to write in that style. I have a feeling he knew exactly what he was doing. He knows I can't resist that kind of stuff. I have to do it just to prove to myself I can.

I'm going to write poetry? I can tell you right now many of my family members are laughing out loud. They are simultaneously skeptical and curious about God knows what will come out of my brain in poly-syllabic form. Me too.

But back to Wally. (You can follow him on Facebook by the way and see more of his poetry there.)

He says writing poetry slows him down, something most of us can use more of these days. I know that writing in general helps him. It has helped me too.

In the Emotional Earthquake curriculum I have a unit on therapeutic writing to introduce the topic to people. But you don't need some course to do what Wally does. 

Start writing. Choose your method. Choose your topic. Choose your frequency.

It's not for everybody but it might be for you.

One more thought for you. There are people in your life like Wally that you've known for years. You have always seen them as a certain thing, probably their business persona. Well, everybody has another side to them. Pick one of those people out. Go find out what their "other" story is. Look behind the "uniform."

You might be surprised.

KS