Today’s poem is very loosely a poem. It’s a little essay broken into lines so as to imitate a poem, a pretty standard technique of mine. I tend to be pretty liberal about what constitutes a poem and what does not. Like most discussions around genre and form, it’s really only interesting if one finds it useful. I am often aware that my “poems” lack many of the conventions one might expect in poetry, but I don’t care that much. I care a little. I guess that’s why I mention it. For the most part, I say, if the writer calls the thing they’ve done a poem, then that’s what it is. Here’s my poem about how I started on the drums.
A History of Drumming
As a child that expressed a love for music
early on, it must have been clear to my parents
that they might have on their hands a musician.
My first impulse as a grade schooler
was the guitar, and somehow I acquired
an acoustic that I insisted on playing upside down
and left-handed. That was the end of the guitar.
How did I land on the drums? It’s a question
I can’t really answer, so I will make up a story
consisting of vague recollections and memory fragments.
An early table tapper, I would often hit things
in rhythm to a song I was listening to while
singing along. I entertained relatives in campers
with my performances, and at some point,
a single drum, a snare drum, entered my life.
My parents paid for a few lessons from a guy
who insisted I use traditional grip and whose
drum set was some relic from when he was a kid,
one of those crazy 40’s era things with a 28 inch
bass drum and a tom that hung from the side
all tilted and catywampus. The only thing I learned
from this guy was that he was not going to teach
me how to play the drums. The catalyst, I think,
was Ramon’s brother, Randy, a guitar player, who
would sometimes invite us, or allow us, to watch
band practice in the basement, and there I had
my first encounter with a real live drum set player.
I think, but I am not certain, that my first
drum set came from that household.
A shitty off-brand with a wild psychedelic wrap,
maybe it was Randy’s, who like me, tried
another instrument first, failed at it, and landed on
something different at which he excelled.
My story is that I convinced my parents
to help me buy that shitty drum set for $150.
And for the next few years I would pound away,
emulating the few older kids in my neighborhood
who were drummers and practicing with bands,
until I became not bad, until I bought my first
real drum set from my cousin Vince, a Ludwig,
sky blue pearl, $350, and I would pound away,
until I became pretty good and found myself
as a high school freshman playing in bands,
just like those older kids I admired.
My only real teacher was a punk rock drummer
conversant in jazz and prog rock, Sam Henry
from The Wipers and The Rats. He was exactly
the right guy at the right time and he was blind.
That’s how the drumming began, and it stuck.
I’ve met musicians who put away their
instruments and never returned to them.
Despite how they might feel about it, to me
these are the saddest people in the world.
I will likely be drumming for the rest of my days.
My hands hurt now, some arthritis settling in,
but it has not stopped me yet, and I am determined
that it won’t. I figure that the pain of quitting
the drums would far exceed the pain I feel
after I’ve played for a few hours.
Check with me in a year or two, or in a decade.
I bet I’ll still be at it, grinning and bearing
all the way through the end of the set.
michael jarmer 