Ben Cartwright has a scrunchy face . You can see him thinking when he talks and his earnestness shines in his eyes . Ben lives in Spokane . He teaches at Gonzaga University , though he has lived in many places including Tianjin China , Topeka , KY Lawrence , KY and Moscow , ID . When asked about how he got started , he said , “ I started writing poetry fairly young , around age twelve or thirteen . I was lucky enough to meet a very talented Spokane poet — a friend of my parents named Mary Ann Waters . The first poetry reading I attended was one Mary Ann gave at Auntie ’ s when I was about ten . It made an impression on me . I remember that the poet who read with Mary Ann shared a poem in which the speaker walks across a cold floor in winter wearing wool socks , and compares the experience to walking across the backs of sheep . I talked to the poet afterward , and told him how clearly I could picture it , that image . In the years since , I ’ ve wished I could remember the poet ’ s name , to contact him , and to locate the poem . I have a suspicion it may have been Robert Wrigley . This would have been in about 1987 or 1988 .
POET BEN CARTWRIGHT By Karen Mobley
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Night hangs the evening in its moonless lobby , a cherry , when it ’ s blooming , it has no stone . Birds shrug into pressing darkness , become the cross-ties on the railroad , or the stars in the sky . I could take a lonesome whistle into an attic with you , wear the night like a coat , nestled under the eaves . Won ’ t you think of this valley when you ’ re leaving , won ’ t you mistake the dream for black dog , crow , and want ? What will you think of your new frontier ? Oh , pilgrim . Where does this lead ? A valley , when it ’ s blooming , has no stones to roll away , no bitter pit to stain the tongue , the thorn , it stuck me to the bone , and painted a rusted exit , and oh , I left the flower alone . I took your ornament as bloom , mistook hands as clover , as offering , I docked this tiny boat inside a story that has no end , a story with no river , and no harbor . Lend the night a silver dollar , the change in your pockets , a current ’ s loosened tongue , so it can tell us aperture , departure , it ’ s time .
from Additional Lyrics by Ben Cartwright and Emily Gwinn
Ben Cartwright has a scrunchy face . You can see him thinking when he talks and his earnestness shines in his eyes . Ben lives in Spokane . He teaches at Gonzaga University , though he has lived in many places including Tianjin China , Topeka , KY Lawrence , KY and Moscow , ID . When asked about how he got started , he said , “ I started writing poetry fairly young , around age twelve or thirteen . I was lucky enough to meet a very talented Spokane poet — a friend of my parents named Mary Ann Waters . The first poetry reading I attended was one Mary Ann gave at Auntie ’ s when I was about ten . It made an impression on me . I remember that the poet who read with Mary Ann shared a poem in which the speaker walks across a cold floor in winter wearing wool socks , and compares the experience to walking across the backs of sheep . I talked to the poet afterward , and told him how clearly I could picture it , that image . In the years since , I ’ ve wished I could remember the poet ’ s name , to contact him , and to locate the poem . I have a suspicion it may have been Robert Wrigley . This would have been in about 1987 or 1988 .
A few years after , I asked Mary Ann if she would help me learn how to write poems . We met once a week , all through my adolescence , up until she passed away . We would meet and go bowling first , at the Valley Bowl , and then go back to her house and drink root beer floats , pet her cats , and talk shop . Mary Ann gave me homework each week — a new prompt for a poem to write . She had one cat named Edgar , named after Edgar Allan Poe , who was polydactyl — one of the Hemingway cats . It ’ s been about twenty years since the last time I got to speak to Mary Ann , and I often wish I could talk to her about Spokane , and the arts scene here , now . She would be delighted , I think .
When I was seventeen , I was accepted to attend a poetry workshop over in Port Townsend , at Centrum . I was the only student from Eastern Washington for poetry that year . There was a visual art student from Richland , I believe . I didn ’ t have the money to make the trip . I asked my high school if it would be possible for me to receive funds , and a vice principal told me , very promptly , that they couldn ’ t help me because I wasn ’ t a sports team . I scraped together the money somehow for a plane ticket to Seattle , but didn ’ t have a way to get to Port Townsend . Sam Hamill actually drove down in his pickup and got me , and the girl from Richland , and drove us to Port Townsend .
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