Poetry: Tommy by John Yamrus

Tommy

didn’t 

know where 

he first heard it 

and he didn’t much care, 

 

because it 

described him perfectly.

 

and 

whenever 

anyone would ask him 

how he was doin’, he’d stop and say:

 

i started 

out with nothin’ 

and still got most of it left.

John Yamrus’s career spans more than 50 years as a working writer. He has published 35 books (29 volumes of poetry, 2 novels, 3 volumes of non-fiction and a children’s book). He has also had nearly 3,000 poems published in magazines and anthologies around the world. A book of his selected poems was just released in Albania, translated into that language by Fadil Bajraj, who is best known for his translations of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Bukowski, Ginsberg, Pound and others. A number of Yamrus’s books and poems are taught in college and university courses. His most recent book is Selected Poems: The Directors (Concrete Mist Press)