Before You Become a Poet, Work in a Bar

Before he was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, John Masefield scrubbed floors in a saloon at Greenwich Avenue and Sixth Avenue in the Village.

My guess, that’s good training to be a poet or a writer of any kind.

His birthday is today, June 1.

Here’s the first part of one of his poems:

“Sea Fever”

I must go down to the seas again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship
and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song
and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and
a grey dawn breaking

- John Flood, Hudson Park Branch Library