I’m beyond proud to say that my poem “St. John Minadeo” has been chosen by City of Asylum and Sampsonia Way Magazine to be the Poem of the Week as part of their All Pittsburghers are Poets Project.
The first stanza of “St. John Minadeo” was the first stanza of poetry I wrote that came out sounding as good on paper as it did in my head. This was after 20 years of considering myself to be a person who wrote poetry. There was a second stanza that explained how I have the thought in the first stanza because of my own anger over austerity politics.
During the great Pittsburgh budget crunch a decade ago plenty of armchair politicians were questioning why we should have paid crossing guards, all ignorant of why we have a school called John Minadeo Elementary.
I showed the poem to friends whose opinions I respect, and all 5 of them said, “Cut the second stanza, it says everything you show in the first.” And I spent 5 years trying to prove them wrong, only to cut the second stanza right before submitting.
Please do check out the other All Pittsburghers are Poets poems on Sampsonia Way’s Website.