I Presented a Story about Chapman and Lindsay at Vachel’s House

On Saturday, October 22, I shared the story of my involvement with the Johnny Appleseed Museum in Urbana, Ohio and visit to John Chapman’s (“Johnny Appleseed’s) grave in Ft. Wayne, Indiana with an audience that filled all seats at Vachel Lindsay House State Historic Site, 603 S. Sixth in lyrical downtown Springfield, Illinois. The presentation was so much a part of what I do, what I believe “Fate” intends for me to do, that I’ve been hesitating to share the story of this event. Would you want to read about me washing dishes on a Sunday morning? I think “no.” Yet washing dishes on a Sunday morning is as much a part of life that I warmly embrace as talking about people who I regard as joys in my life. This post is not about what happened between March 17 and 20 this year; it’s about what happened October 22.
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I began preparing for October 22 in early April after I had delivered a gift I had purchased at the Appleseed Museum to site administrator Jennie Battles at Vachel’s house: an apple-themed ceramic serving plate, very attractive, something for cookies. Jennie and I agreed to save a Saturday date in the fall for me to share the story. I would recite the poem I had read at the Ohio museum and share pictures. She also invited me to tell younger visitors about Johnny Appleseed at a summertime Children’s Story Time Saturday morning event.
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The Story Time event promised prime time for a poem I wanted to write for younger hearts, and my mid-May, my new poem “Song of Johnny Appleseed” was on paper and ready to share.
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In the course of memorizing and performing almost 40 of my favorite poems by Vachel Lindsay and even more of my own,  I have learned that if I cannot recite a poem while somersaulting around the livingroom floor and buttoning, then unbuttoning my shirt and watching a video of a fave movie, I am not ready to recite that poem in public. The words of a poem must be so second nature to me that I can speak the words while adding the additional essential ingredients for public presentation. I do not call this kind of sharing “Performing.” I call it “releasing the poem as it should be released to deliver maximum understanding of the author’s words and intent for the poem.” Speaking the words of a poem, either reciting or reading from a piece of paper is not all there is, not all there should be to sharing a poem aloud in public or with friends. It is not all there should be because as hummin’ beans, we are imbued with the capacity, with practice, to do so much more!
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The process required reading aloud many times, mostly at home. That’s easy because I live alone — dammit — and the mice don’t complain. It also required reading it aloud in public at open mics and poetry events where I’m not a featured poet for the occasion. When I’m featured, I recite; simple as that, the LEAST I can do for people who WANT to hear/see me, who aren’t there by benign coincidence. Reading aloud allows a glimpse of the good spots in a poem and the not-so-hot spots where people didn’t react as anticipated. 
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Some phrases in a selected poem seem to lock into the brain in a reading (aloud) practice or two. Other phrases, lines, couplets and more seem to take forever. In Vachel’s poem, even after I considered the poem “essentially memorized” in early September, two lines continued to give me fits. They are in italics in the following . . .
“In a pack on his back,
In a deer-hide sack,
The beautiful orchards of the past,
The ghosts of all the forests and groves.”
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Only when — while trying different rhythms to the third line — I discovered the key to locking it in. Consider “The BEAUtiful ORchards OF the PAST/ The GHOSTS of ALL the FOrests and groves.” When I remembered that rhythm in lines that are a trifle prosey for a poem, I remembered the line. More important, the lines recited that way were not stilted or contrived. Recited that way, they advanced the poem!
There were some other lines, particularly “The rooster-trumpeting, boar foaming, wolf-ravening forest.” When I understood the smiles that were built into that line, reprising some points made early into the poem, they too came smoothly from the “page inside my mind’s eyes” to coin a phrase. But I must tell you, if I had not recited that poem at least 30 times — sometimes just the challenging lines, almost as often the entire three pages — in the week leading up to the 22nd, I would have failed that poem at Vachel’s house!
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Jennie had arranged the loan of a computer and apparatus that allowed me to project pictures and text to a bare wall at Vachel’s, material I assembled in Word with 300 dpi, 5″ x 7″ pictures. I should have practiced using it before the 22nd but circumstance did not permit.  Gentlemen volunteers already familiar with it helped, and thanks to Linda Suits at the Illinois State Historic Preservation Agency for loaning the equipment. I MUST acquire one of those not-quite PowerPoint machines. There were a few “ripples in the flow” of image projecting, but nothing that sank my canoe.
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I concluded by reciting part 1 of Vachel’s “In Praise of Johnny Appleseed, ” the same words I had read March 19 in Ohio. Some rocks impeded the two or three lines early into the reciting, but no serious harm was inflicted and it was incredibly smooth sailing for the rest of it. I finished my presentation three-minute short of the allocated 40 minutes. I know tis because I had brought a digital, battery-powered timer that was easy to read.
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The audience approved. I know this because they applauded when I stopped.
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A fellow named Peter who was visiting the house from Chicago and stayed for my presentation subsequently e-mailed me asking if I could come up to Chicago to share with his friends and associates. I replied: “Pay my expenses, and consider me THERE when you want me.
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It was a fine conclusion to a sequence of events that began last January 20. It’s not quite the end. I am going to keep what I recited in my active repertoire along with a bunch of other Vachel and a bunch of other Me. Thanks to Jennie Battles of Vachel’s house and to all who attended, especially Sandy, Barbara, Kit, Fred, Peter, Marge, and the rest!
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Out of respect to those planning to attend Spoken Word Night at The Pharmacy, a new Springfield visual arts studio and arts event center at South Grand at Pasfield on Thursday, October 27, starting at 7 p, I will not speak John Chapman’s name. I will recite Vachel’s poem “Simon Legree” and a few of my own.
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Live long . . . . . . . . . . and proper.