Thomas Devaney: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thomas Devaney. Photo by Patrick Montero.

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Oregon Ave

 

You can’t find a place to smoke anymore

Ro says, smoking and rifling

through her handbag looking for a number.

She sits in the backseat with Meg.

They’re not singing.

The ballgame’s on inside and outside

the game is always on.

Actually, sometimes they do sing.

What year is the car, a ’98?

A Ford? A Focus?

They always tip too.

 

There is dust, always; and terrible dirt;

but if that’s what you see you’re hardly looking.

We believe in the front stoop.

We believe in banging pots and pans and honking horns.

We believe that in the heat of day shadows come back.

Trashcan on fire says Things are hotting up.

The street’s a mix, water, water ice, LIVE CRABS,

jumbo jets, firecrackers.

Summer days are huge and often overlap late into fall.

Seriously, when you have a good spot, why move the car?

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Thomas Devaney is the author of You Are the Battery (Black Square Editions, 2020) and Getting to Philadelphia (Hanging Loose Press, 2019). He wrote and co-directed the film Bicentennial City (2021) about the 1976 Bicentennial in Philadelphia. He teaches creative writing at Haverford College.

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    Philadelphia Muses by Meg Saligman. Photo by Steve Welnik.

Comments

[Clarinda harriss]

I love this poem and can’t help noting how it could be about baltimore if not for that great phrase “Hotting up”. What wonders csn be wrought with “just plain words.”

[Eileen]

Great poem. Love it. The accompanying art work is also great🎭

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Eileen. Glad you like the post.

[Gerald Fleming]

Love the "hotting up," too, in this fine Tom Devaney poem. All too apt right now; our country that trashcan on fire.

[lally]

thomas devaney is another fave poet of mine and this poem wonderfully illustrates why...and i do mean "wonder full"...

[Bill Nevins]

Why move the car at all?
Fine poem, with LIVE cRaBs!
Delicious.

[Dr. Earle Hitchner]

Oregon Avenue is very familiar to me. My mother’s side of the family lived in South Philadelphia, through which Oregon Avenue runs. There are two sacred spaces in a South Philly row-home: the kitchen and the front stoop. As a kid, I loved to hang out at both. Thomas Devaney knows--better yet, GETS--Oregon Avenue. How do I know? Because of his thrice iteration “we believe,” representing streetwise religious beliefs of behavior. Parking is still a gladiatorial sport in that area of Philly. Pat’s and Geno’s still duel over whose steak sandwiches are better. And small glasses of red wine made in cellars still dot the dinner table. I loved it all. Devaney concludes his vivid and remarkably tactile poem with the bedrock gospel of Philly auto culture: “Seriously, when you have a good spot, why move the car?” Another excellent observational poem by Devaney, “The Blue Stoop,” ends with comparable punch: “All the dirty kid faces that will never be clean. / Those are my faces.”

[Susan Francis Campbell]

Terrific!

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Earle. I knew that a good Philly poem would lure you back to the comments section.

[Don Berger]

A vivid andl full-hearted expression of Thomas Devaney’s love for his place—next I want to get the book that contains this poem.

[Shira Walinsky]

Absolutely wonderful poem that takes us into so many spaces, the interior of the cab where we meet Ro and Meg, smoking and looking for a places to smoke. Inside and outside the ballgame is on. I love The vivid life on the street, the voices , the signage on Oregon Ave, Live Crabs and fireworks! Thomas takes us there. I love the chorus “ We believe in the front stoop..” This poem people and place, over heard seen and felt.

[Peter Kearney]

For this reader from the Bronx, belief in the front stoop is a kind of Dutch treat that New York and Philadelphia can enjoy together.

[Eamonn Wall]

Thanks so much. Love this poem.

[Celia]

Love this poem Tom - it’s another Devaney great one. I felt like I was there and no, I would never move the car!

[Olivia H-G]

Seriously, why? A classic from the Bard of Philadelphia. A poem so good, I had to read it a few times.