Retired Baptist and Reflector editor Fletcher Allen wrote scores of news and feature articles during his 32-plus years as a Baptist journalist in a career that spanned four decades with three papers (The Baptist Courier in South Carolina, the Baptist True Union of Maryland-Delaware, and the Baptist and Reflector in Tennessee).
Fletcher Allen with “Plowing Wind and Time.”A little-known fact about Allen is that one of his forms of relaxation during that time was writing poetry, something he actually began doing while in high school in Hartsville, and continued during his college days at Furman University in Greenville.
“Writing poetry was a release, a way to relax and share my thoughts with people,” he said.
At the encouragement of friends, Allen has released his first book of poems entitled “Plowing Wind and Time,” published by Fields Publishing in Nashville.
In essence, the book is an autobiographical glimpse of Allen’s life through the medium of poetry. The title is taken in part from Allen’s childhood in South Carolina. Raised on a farm, Allen learned to plow at an early age and grasped at an early age that “everything in life is affected by wind and time.
“Life is itself a journey you plow along in time,” he observed.
Several of the poems in his first collection of poetry deal with wind and time. One poem especially, “Talking with the Wind,” deals with everything the wind does, Allen said.
He noted that many of the poems are about places he has seen and visited as a journalist. One poem, “Looking at Life,” is comprised of 16 vignettes about things he experienced personally or read about.
Several contain childhood memories:
“One treasure leans in the corner of a dark closet – Great Uncle Jimmy’s rifle, a Civil War relic.
“Culpepper Station, Virginia, 1863. The wounded soldier makes it home with the gun and silver pocket watch. Years later, my daddy swaps the rifle to Doctor Wilcox for house visits. We escape the Dust Bowl storms, but not the Great Depression.”
Another describes one of many mission trips he took as a Baptist journalist:
“Ragged urchins stand in slum mud, Manila’s brackish wastewaters lapping at their feet. Fried chicken intestines smell good to them – a small portion for a friendly American dollar.
“Inside huts, sleeping mats hang on damp walls, draw flies.
“Ragged urchins stand in muddy water – and smile at me.”
Another vignette recounts his journey with his wife Betty, to whom the book is dedicated, during her final days before succumbing to cancer in 2003:
“Dusk and snow fall, trees bare, I ease her chair to the window, and dim the lights inside.
“She blesses the snow, its flowery flakes.
“Tomorrow crocuses will bloom; her last witness to love.”
The book also contains several photographs, the majority of which were taken by Allen throughout his career as a Baptist journalist.
Allen stressed the book does not contain just Christian poems, but rather a broad and varied collection. None of the poems, he noted, contain anything “you wouldn’t want children to read.”
The book is divided into four sections, each introduced by four “haiku,” an oriental form of descriptive poetry.
Allen noted that anyone reading the poems should not be compelled to ask, “What does it mean?”
“A poem means what the writer wants it to mean,” Allen explained. “By the same token, a poem can also mean what the reader wants it to mean,” he continued. And, he added, “a few of the poems are purposely mysterious.”
As a journalist, Allen wrote news and feature stories and editorials. He also has authored two histories, one about his family (“Half a Dozen Assorted” – all about the Allen family) and one about the Baptist and Reflector (“Telling the Truth in Love: A Brief History of the Baptist and Reflector from 1835.”)
Yet poetry is one of his favorite styles of writing.
“Poetry is something I did for myself because I really wanted to,” he reflected.
He is convinced that poetry is “the most concise way of expressing yourself with the written word.” The book, he said, is a suggestion for the reader to write a poem.
Allen is still writing poetry, and he is entertaining thoughts of a second book of poems.
For more information about the book or to order a copy ($19.95 plus $4 postage per book), call Allen at (615) 790-2488.
Book signings are scheduled Feb. 28 at the Open Book in Greenville, 3 p.m., and Feb. 29 at the Burry Bookstore in Hartsville, 3 p.m.