Poetry unearthed

Since we find ourselves now in the middle of National Poetry Month, I thought I’d share something special from my audio archives. You may recall that last April, I wrote about several published poets who have ties to our area, and I mentioned Tim Daynard, who I remember as the late, great Poet Laureate of Gloversville.

One hot day in August 2004, I was playing music at the farmers market (this was at the old West Fulton Street location, before the grand Elm Street Pavilion was built). Tim came by and listened for a while, and we chatted about music and poetry and the local open mic scene, such as it was.

I asked if he’d like to use my microphone and read one of his poems for the crowd at the market. He pulled a sheaf of notes from his pocket and selected a piece called “The Wisdom of Barking Dogs.”

As luck would have it, I happened to be recording the sound that day, so now I’m able to share the poem with you the way it was intended to be experienced: directly from the author’s voice to your ears. It wasn't easy to find this recording among the hours and hours of digital sound I have recorded over the years, but I finally unearthed it. Perhaps I should do a better job of cataloging what I capture! (Tim asked for some instrumental accompaniment; you can hear me noodling with my guitar in the background.) Enjoy.

You can play this audio right here in your browser by clicking the “play” button below, or download the .mp3 file by right-clicking on this link: TIM_DAYNARD_WISDOM.MP3