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| Frank Messina: An Interview with the 'Mets Poet' |
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| Wednesday, October 3, 2007 |
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| You have received a good deal of attention recently. |
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| Even though Im not Michael Jackson or somebody, when people come up to me and introduce themselves and say, 'Hey Frank, my name is John,' I say, 'Hey John, my name is Frank' and they laugh. |
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| It's a funny phenomenon. |
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| What goes through your head when that happens? |
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| I understand it. |
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| I've gone to readings and concerts. |
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| I look at it as human interaction. |
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| Over the years I have performed in 32 countries and 40 states. |
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| I've been doing this professionally since I was in my twenties, and before that since I was sixteen doing little tidbit poetry readings in coffeehouses. |
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| The band I started in 1993, Spoken Motion, received a lot of recognition as a spoken word band born out of the New York spoken word scene. |
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| I worked with some great musicians and performed around the world. |
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| I remember signing my first autograph to a kid when I was 25 years old. |
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| As time went on, I came out with books and CDs, and I became used to that kind of thing. |
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| To me, the ultimate feeling of success as an artist, is to move somebody enough where they thank you. |
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| When someone comes up and says, 'Frank, thank you, your work is great.' |
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| You have a long career in poetry, but as of late the attention you have garnered is for the Mets-inspired work. |
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| How do you feel about having a lot of your work overshadowed by the Mets work? |
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| It's ironic. |
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| Some of the greatest poetry has been born out of failure and the depths of adversity in the human experience. |
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| Walt Whitman, the first great American poet, wrote about the Civil War. |
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| He went looking for his brother, George Whitman, after he a telegram telling him his brother was injured in the South. |
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| When he started out his poems were about beating drums, and blow, bugle, blow. |
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| Real patriotic. |
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| Then he started to see the real horrors of war. |
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| He was able to tap into the human condition and the situation at that time. |
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| Eventually when he found his brother he had resolution. |
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| I experienced that kind of adversity during 9/11 being a civilian volunteer. |
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| I loaded ferry boats in Jersey City across the river to deliver goods to Ground Zero. |
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| I turned to Whitman to find some understanding of what is happening in the world right now. |
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| When I wrote my 9/11-related poems, that was true adversity. |
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| I realize baseball is just a game. |
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| Can you recite a stanza that expresses how you feel right now? |
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| This was a piece that the Times only quoted one stanza, but it's about preparation for a battle, and being prepared to either rise to the occasion, or go down: |
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| Do you know what it's like to be chased by the Ghost of Failure while staring through Victory's door? |
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| Of course you do, you're a Mets fan caught in a do-or-die moment in late September at Shea |
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| As one thats battled hard through many a broken dream Let me say, 'in order to rise to the occasion you must be willing to go down with the ship', |
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| Have no fear, no hesitation, for Winning shall be it's reward! |
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| Don't let them get in your head! |
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| you've kept it up this long |
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| You're a Mets fan in late September and youll fight til the glorious end |
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| Cheer the team today; (your boys in orange and blue) Let them hear you shout as they fight for what's mightily due |
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| (copyright Frank Messina; reprinted with permission)' |
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| Sports fans aren't known as patrons of poetry. |
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| Have you had interaction with 'new readers' through your Mets work? |
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| This one person who I never met took a picture of me and sent it to me in an e-mail. |
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| The e-mail said, 'Frank, I have never bothered you during the game, but I just wanted to say thank you for your work and thank you for making some sense of the successes and failures and I wish you much success with your work.' |
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| Last year in my section at the stadium I had a banner that read We Know'. |
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| That's all it said. |
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| Then earlier this year these shirts started to come out that said, 'Poet says We Know'. |
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| It was amazing. |
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| We didn't use the banner this year, though, because we didn't know. |
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| The team wasn't so far ahead that we knew. |
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| Last year we just knew we were going to the playoffs; we knew we were going post-season. |
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| This year we weren't sure. |
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| We were walking on eggshells. |
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| There was a woman, a season ticket holder and a die hard fan. |
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| She was staggered by the loss last year to the Cardinals. |
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| Last year she came up to me during one of the games late in the season; she was so happy we were going to the post season. |
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| By that point we had clinched it. |
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| She handed me a shirt she bought at the stadium and she gave me a big hug. |
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| With tears in her eyes she said, 'Thank you, Mets Poet, thank you.' |
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| It's cool ... it's like another family. |
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| Moments like that must make you realize you have touched people who aren't normally touched by poetry. |
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| It's opened up a new fan base, so to speak. |
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| For the last year SNY has broadcast footage of me with my poems, so quite a few fans known about the 'Mets Poet'. |
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| I have never called myself that, by the way. |
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| The back of my jersey says 'The Poet' because growing up that was my nickname. |
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| My brother was a runner and they used to call him The Birdman -- Birdie -- and they called me The Poet. |
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| It was a natural thing, but I never coined myself as 'The Mets Poet.' |