My Hands Are a City

Jones Irwin:

I often write poems when I am traveling (on trains, planes etc.) as there is something in the rhythm of this movement that inspires my creative sense. Shorter poems are especially suited to this more instantaneous writing and, in recent years, I have taken a critical interest in how the haiku form of poem (with the strict three line and seventeen syllable count) was metamorphosed by Jack Kerouac under his conception of “American Haikus.” The three-line prescription became more fluid and dexterous. While keeping the philosophy of simplicity, this aesthetic also sought to allow for more connection to contemporary and urban environments.

This was my catalyst for the opening line of “My Hands Are a City.” Cities are complex, often difficult to experience for the newcomer, but also extraordinary places of joy and freedom. Thessaloniki in Northern Greece is a particular example of such a place, steeped in multicultural history, plural languages, and cultures. I have been lucky to both holiday and work there over time.

This poem originated on one of their public buses, a very hot environment with no air conditioning on this Thursday early afternoon in July. On this bus, “we were all intimates” – there is a powerful juxtaposition here of public and of private. To cry in public is perhaps the most vulnerable of acts. Just as our hands can write, so too they can caress, even strangers – “my hands cup his tears like a chalice.” We have a moment of shared relationship (“He says efcharisto” [thanks]) but there can be no happy ending in this context; his lament is continuous.