Poet's Journey: My First Market Experience with JustMyTypewriter Poetry

By Arica Burns

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My first market.

Huh, well it was quite the experience!

I felt both prepared and unprepared for what was going to happen--in a good way.

I’m not very talkative, yet that’s exactly what I spent the entire time doing. It was invigorating and overwhelming, but all around purely amazing to watch people’s eyes light up just at seeing the typewriters alone.

There were so many people that were just excited about the typewriters before they even asked about what we were doing. But when I sat with them and talked about what they wanted their personalized poem to be about, there was an insight into lives that I would never know past this singular moment.

"It felt a bit like I was back at Millikin, writing for the Decaturian Student Newspaper, asking questions to tell a story."

It was beautiful and a bit jaw-dropping.

It was busy, filled with interest, people asking for poems, and lives being unfolded in front of me for the sake of a poem typed on a type-writer. It felt a bit like I was back at Millikin, writing for the Decaturian Student Newspaper, asking questions to tell a story. And that’s kind of exactly what poetry is, let alone writing poems off the top of my head for people after asking questions. That’s what it felt like.

I was nervous, my anxiety was high from the moment I woke up the day of the market until the second we sat down for a debrief at the end.

Not because I didn’t see good coming from this because trust me, I definitely did. I thought this would be an amazing opportunity to share poetry with people, and this love of typewriters too. Which it is. But I was nervous for a whole different reason.

I’m not good at talking to people, not really, and what I was about to do felt like it would be too much.

In reality, I felt more comfortable than I had in a long time.

It was challenging, of course, to get into the mindset of asking people what they were wanting to see in this poem and then free-writing it based on the information they gave me, no matter how much I was told. It was challenging to get used to typing on a typewriter again too. But it was beautiful at the same time.

When I gave the completed poem to the first person who came up wanting one, I got to see the light in their eyes, the grin they couldn’t stop from forming, the pure excitement and happiness. I can’t even begin to tell you how hard I wanted to cry to see my poetry having an effect on someone, let alone that I actually made something for them that they wanted.

"Not only is writing an escape, not only can it offer an escape to a reader, but it can provide them with a connection that they may be missing."

The rest of the day had me feeling like I was on cloud-nine despite the nerves, despite the conversations I had just trying to offer my book, let alone a personalized poem.

I even got to write about a long-term friendship that was still going as strong as the day they became friends. It reminded me, so much, of why I wanted to write in the first place.

Not only is writing an escape, not only can it offer an escape to a reader, but it can provide them with a connection that they may be missing. It can provide them with what they need, even if they can’t find it in reality, and that’s what I love aside from just making them feel something. Being able to give them what they need, whether it’s to cry, or to feel validated.

My first market was an experience that I will never forget and that may never be replicated in exactly the same way, and I am grateful for it.