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South Bend Tribune: Poetic production
Wednesday, October 08, 2003 3:39:00 PM
by Londis Carpenter
| Literary Criticism |
| Londis Carpenter started writing poetry three years ago and has now composed more than 200 poems. |
Machinist publishes book of his works
by AGNES GEIGER
Tribune Staff Writer
Edwardsburg--A factory worker might seem like an unlikely poet, but work behind the saw is inspirational to writer Londis Carpenter. About 75 percent of his poems come from ideas he created while working as a machinist at Vista Manufacturing Inc. in Elkhart, he said. "Most of the time when I work at the saw the rhythm gets going," he said. "Your mind really has nothing to think about, and pretty soon I'll get a rhythm and be thinking of a tune or song. "Then the first thing you know I start putting my own words to it. Then I'm grabbing a paper and writing it down so I don't forget it."
Carpenter, of Edwardsburg wrote his first serious poem only three years ago at the age of 62. Since then he has composed more than 200. A new book containing 107 of his poems titled "Sketches From Life" has been published by PublishAmerica of Frederick, Md. He's already at work on a second book to be called "The Language Of Trees." His poems tell stories, often with a twist at the end, and are designed for readers of all ages, especially children. His works are not 100 percent true , but are based on situations of people he knows. "I used to draw and found out I didn't have any talent that way. I tried music and didn't have a lot of talent that way," he said. "I finally found that the talent that I do have is words. so this is my art. The empty page is my canvas and the words are my paint."
But Carpenter's path along the way to becoming a published poet wasn't deliberate. His first poem called "The Eye Of The Dragonfly," is about a boy who watches a dragonfly. It was written about his 12-year-old grandson, Justin Lamberson, who now lives in Iowa. "Justin always says it's part true , part made up, but mostly true ," Carpenter said. "After I wrote it I thought,'That is so cute it would make a nice children's book.' But I couldn't find any artist to help me write the book, and I couldn't figure how to get it published." After receiving a tremendous response on the internet, he made a coloring book from the poem and published it himself at OfficeMax for a few hundred dollars. He placed the books into area doctor's offices, day-care centers and libraries.
"That was the kickoff," he said. "I thought it was fun writing that and started working on a few more (poems) here or there." His next project was a book of poems as a Valentine's Day present for his wife, Charlene. "I dedicated it to her, of course, and I put in her favorite poems that I had written up to that point," he said. The project only fueled a drive to get a "real book" going. Then a contact over the internet led him to a publisher who would publish the book free of charge in exchange for seven-year rights to sell the book. The company rejects 80 percent of manuscripts submitted, but Carpenter's book made the cut." (I thought) if they'll accept this, then I probably should keep writing; if not I'll probably just do it as a hobby," he said.
Carpenter loves reading his poems aloud, and writes them that way because it makes the poetry more enjoyable."I like the sound of it--like music to me. when the words are put together right, they're like music," he said. "I'm one of those old fashoned people that think poetry should rhyme," he said. "Also I do everything I can to keep them wholesome. I don't want any junk stuff with my name on it to get out."
He thinks children don't read enough these days, and adults don't spend enough time reading to children. "When I was young I was fortunate because my mother and grandmother would always read to us children--even when we could read by ourselves," he said. "We would have a family get-together three or four nights a week and either Mom or Grandma would read to us," he said.
But signs of a budding poet did not appear while Carpenter was growing up in Everett, Washington. "The amazing thing was I was always a poor student," he said. "I was a goof-off. I was a clown. I was a bad guy and always getting into fights." But he did manage to buckle down and graduate, and he later studied marine biology in junior college. He's worked in factories most of his life and has lived in Edwardsburg for the past 25 years. He even was a licensed barber for a while. "I never really paid the rent very well, because when everyone else was getting eight or ten dollars for a haircut, I was charging two or three," he said. "I was a good barber, but a bad businessman."
His message now in writing is that everyone is a hero, and that you can do anything. He learned that at 9 years old while swimming in Washington state. "There was a platform in the middle of the lake with a high dive, and I wanted to do it but I was scared," Carpenter said. "So one day I swam out and climbed all the way up the ladder and I looked down and shook my head. 'There ain't no way I'm going to do this,' I thought, so I went back down the ladder." After watching the other kids for a while, Carpenter decided to try again. At the top of the ladder, he knew what he had to do. "If I jump then I don't have to worry about anything but how I am going to land," he recalled. "I didn't think about it--I just went off the platform. ...It seemed like 15 seconds, I had all the time I needed to correct myself, and I hit the water just perfectly."
"You can do anything you want to do, but you have to have the courage to do it," he said. "A hero is not a person that's not afraid, a hero is a person that's afraid but does what they've got to do anyway. That's what I try to teach."
If his books are successful, Carpenter plans to spend more time with his other hobby of collecting insects from his back yard. At last count, he has more than 1,000. But Carpenter said his ambition is not to become a famous poet or sell a lot of books. "I like writting. It's a format to say things that I really feel," he said. "I do hope that maybe when I'm gone somebody will remember me because they'll have something I wrote."
Staff writer Agnes Geiger
ageiger.sbtinfo.com
(574) 235-6338
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