By Jessie Lendennie

Say you’re walking down the street
and a red pick-up truck stops
and you recognize the driver
long dead
and you look down the street
and the driver says ‘do you need a ride?’
and you nod

Say, you’re sitting in a café
coffee long cold
and someone says ‘don’t I know you?’
and you look up and say ‘maybe’
and you want to say ‘in another life’
but you look away instead

Outside, the buildings sway
like wheat fields
and the pick-up trucks roar
past the lumber yard
and down the darkening highway

The Importance of Arts, Culture & The Creative Process
Art is the life blood of humanity. I have supported poets and poetry for most of my life, and published hundreds of poetry collections for over 4 decades; it is my passion and purpose in life.

What was the inspiration for your creative work? Reading and writing poetry has moved me since I was a child; it is transcendent. I reach for that in every poem I write.

Tell us something about the natural world that you love and don’t wish to lose. What are your thoughts on the kind of world we are leaving for the next generation? Most of my poems are to do with landscape and identity. It is crucially important to fight for this freedom, and leave a legacy of how art can shape the world. This is such a huge subject that I can't give all my thoughts here!

Photo credit: Jessie Lendennie

Jessie Lendennie was born in Arkansas, USA. After years of travel, she settled in Ireland in 1981. Her publications include a book-length prose poem Daughter (1988), reprinted as Daughter and Other Poems in 2001 and Walking Here (2011). She compiled and edited: Salmon: A Journey in Poetry, 1981-2007; Poetry: Reading it, Writing It, Publishing It (2009); Dogs Singing: A Tribute Anthology (2010); and, Even The Daybreak: 35 Years of Salmon Poetry (2016). She is founder (1981) and Managing Director of Salmon Poetry.