The Poetess at Green Lake

Posted by Linda Sue Grimes May 14, 2007

Allin’s blogsite explains: “A year-long project, Sundays 9-5, July 2006 - July 2007 [- I hope, by setting up my desk and working here before you, to communicate the awareness that there is a poet within reach, committed to you."

Alliln earned an M.A. degree from City College in New York in creative writing. She titled her project “Nostalgia” after a film by Andrei Tarkovsy. She says the term denotes a “universal place, that homeland we seek.” She asserts that “Nostalgia” is the place “we long to come home to,” because ultimately it is the “human spirit.”

Allin writes poetry; she also writes journals. She produces “questionnaires, visual poetry, text-art and poetry-driven performances for public spaces.” Her manuscripts “Soviet Poems” and “Roof of Air” are not yet published, but she is actively pursuing their publication.

Experiences

Allin has had many interesting experiences with people who come up to her desk and inquire about her project. She explains one of them: “Two girls approach my desk, eleven, maybe twelve years old. I read "The Passing of Thistle,” [about the death of a dog]. I think as I am reading it—Oh, I've picked the wrong poem. This poem is too mature.” But the girls’ response showed that they understood the poem as they related it to their own experience with an aged and dying dog.

The following is another excerpt that exemplifies her experience: “I've just been approached by a couple with a dog who quoted Shakespeare and then posed this question.”What do you hope to gain from your time here?" Gain? What to gain? My God, how to answer such a question? What a public, making me think! Posing questions! I must satisfy them with an answer. I must satisfy myself. And so the struggle begins. My struggle. The struggle of the poet.”

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