Write Like You Mean It - Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Digital Branch

Write Like You Mean It

00:00 / 00:45:00

Show Notes

In this episode of “Meet Me at the Library,” we talk about how writing programs, and one in particular, “Write Like You Mean It” benefit library customers. We also talk about library programs and resources related to writing. You’ll get to hear writing samples from participants in “Write Like You Mean It.”

This episode is dedicate to the memory of James Scott Anderson who passed away on April 5th, 2019, about two months after this episode was recorded. Scott can be heard in the “writing samples” section of the podcast. Below are two poems by Scott and one by Pam Turner in his honor. Pam is the facilitator of the “Write Like you Mean It,” program, which Scott attended regularly at Main Library in Charlotte.

- I don’t know, but I’ve been told by James Scott Anderson

Written 4/4/19

I don’t know, but I’ve been told
all the streets in Heaven
are paved in Gold!

It’s never night, it’s always day
Know I’m there when I pass away

Don’t know if I’ll make the angelic choir
Can’t sing a dang lick, but I could hum and smile!
We’ll all be gorgeous in our billowing robes
We’re not floating in clouds, we’re standing next to the THRONE

It’s the very most of all special places
It’s where we’ll see other loved ones’ faces
They’ve been waiting for us,
They knew we’d show up!

We’ll all be singing of His Amazing graces!! (happy face drawing here)
So when my time comes, and you wonder where I am,
Trust that I’m ok, you know I had this planned!

I’m in a better place, with a big smile on my face
No longer fighting off raccoons, no more livin’ in this place

- YOUR LIFE WILL BE LIKE A SHINING STAR by James Scott Anderson

How many unlit stars are at the bottom of your breakfast bowl?
How many lonely shadows hide deep in your soul?
How manys the time you sat and had a good cry?
How many damn times you gotta ask Jesus “Why”?
How many more days I gotta live flat broke?
How manys the times I feel like a damn joke!
How many more days I gotta live in such need?
How many more people I see full of their greed?
How many more raindrops gotta find me and fall?
How many more times will I pass up Your call?
How many more days searching for the sun’s rays?
How many more nights to enjoy the full moon’s light?

- a world without the possibility of Scott by Pam Turner

i woke up in a new world today
a world without a possibility of you
where by grace i am still breathing
and eating and typing poetry but
it will never rhyme or sparkle like you

no river of tears will wash your face
from my eyes, no outpouring of words
will cleanse me of this need to tell you just
how many times your hug changed a day
how many days your poem moved the room

i woke up today in a world without you
and remembered that your every day
was without so much, empty of comforts
while full of praise for the kindness of strangers,
for the sun rising another day… for me

you were grateful for me and told everyone
how you wished every day was Thursday
and we laughed at the improbability of
that ever coming true, and Thursday will
surely come but it won’t have you

I woke up today in a world where money
can buy almost everything but it cannot
buy a Scott, it cannot undo that savagery
that took you to your home on high
it cannot make a Thursday as perfect as you

I woke up today and cannot

_______Pam Turner, Write Like You Mean It

Time Codes: (with helpful links)