Bill Pruitt
Recently, Bill Pruitt became a Talker subscriber. Today, we are pleased to share two of Bill’s poems: “What the River Sees,” and “Changing Trains in Motion.” (See more poetry at end)
Bill is a fiction writer, storyteller and poet, and an Assistant Editor with Narrative Magazine. He has published poems in such places as Ploughshares, Anderbo.com and Cottonwood and in recent issues of Off Course, Otis Nebula, and Literary Juice; two chapbooks with White Pine and FootHills; and self-published Walking Home from the Eastman House. Bill has told stories in various places in Rochester and upstate New York, including the National Women’s Hall of Fame. Most recently, he performed his original story, “Two Kinds of Fear,” a completely documented telling about the lives of Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass during their time in Rochester. Bill will be performing this story at Rundel in March of next year. His short stories appear in a recent issue of Crack of the Spine Literary Magazine and Midway; and in upcoming issues of Indiana Voice Journal, Sick Lit Magazine and Hypertext. Bill taught English for 26 years to non-native speakers for BOCES 2 in Spencerport. He and his wife Pam have two children and two grandchildren.
“Changing Trains in Motion” will be published in the fall issue of Stoneboat Journal of Sheboygan, WI. Bill selected “What the River Sees” after reading “Looking at the Genesee River” by Kitty Jospé.
What the River Sees
from Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
Changing Trains in Motion
A few of us willing to have our thought trains replaced
by polyrhythms in melodic sequence have gathered
at the Lovin Cup to sit below two half-circle ceiling
drop downs swathed in corrugated tin to listen to
the Fat Man and his friends talk to each other
using strings and sticks and stops
When he plays, his bulk leaves him and he gambols,
like a fawn or a young girl through a field of buttercups
or up a trellis he twines with his sax
followed by the guitarist and bassist and drummer
and when he plays flute, he grows even lighter,
as this holiday crowd begins to change trains
from their own track which was rapidly running out
to this different one which just keeps going, all of us
in the air, our mass supported by nothing but vine,
musicians thinking out loud, infinite thought quantified
by practice, then re-enchanted by sleight of hand, when Bobby
switched his bulk for grace without it being noticed
Photo provided by Bill
MORE POETRY
Our first submission! “November” by Olivia Spenard, Creative Writing Program, School of the Arts
Some more poetry from the Mystic. And would love your submissions
