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Boston arrival

The moment I had the idea for Door-to-Door Poetry, I was walking down the street I live on. It’s a pretty normal row of terraces, there’s about 300 people living around me. For the first time in my life, I realised I didn’t know any of them.

I don’t think that’s particularly unusual, is it? A lot of people don’t talk to their neighbours. But until this point, I’d never really noticed how odd that was.

My conversation with Kyle had been brief, but it had given me a glimpse of an exciting new frontier. I was now an official Door-to-Door Poet.

I went back to deliver Kyle’s poem a few weeks later. The plan was to read it out to him in person, then give him a written copy. But as I walked along Mundella Terrace that day, I found myself worrying about whether Kyle would be in when I arrived.

There were other potential complications I hadn’t really considered. What if Kyle was in, but it wasn’t a good time to talk? What if he felt obliged to listen to me reading the poem when he was actually in the middle of something much more important?

It would have been great if I could have phoned ahead first. But I hadn’t thought to take his number. I didn’t even know his second name. When it came down to it, the sheer thrill of finding someone had completely taken over.

In the end, I needn’t have been worried. I tapped Kyle’s knocker and he answered pretty much immediately, wearing a bright blue pair of Hawaiian shorts.

‘How do?’ he asked.

I said hello. I explained that I’d come to deliver his poem.

‘Well, you best come in then,’ he said.

I followed Kyle through the door and we took a left into the living room. I sat down on a dark green armchair and pulled the poem out of my briefcase. Kyle perched on a sofa nearby and I started to read it to him.

It felt a bit strange. I was used to doing this kind of thing on stages, where you can look around the room.

But this was a poem written for one person. In their house. It was difficult to know how much to look at Kyle while I read it. Making too much eye contact seemed a bit intense. But not looking at him at all felt kind of antisocial. I made a conscious effort to aim for somewhere in the middle.

I wasn’t sure what Kyle was making of it all. I could see there was a pressure on him too, to look like he was enjoying it. To pull his ‘I’m enjoying having a poem read to me’ face.

By the end of it, Kyle settled for a very Yorkshire: ‘That were good, that,’ before shaking my hand and patting me on the shoulder.

He told me the poem felt well-timed. He’d been out for a surf only just the other day. He said he didn’t dislike his home town quite as much as I’d made out, but he’d enjoyed hearing what I’d written all the same.

It felt good to get to know someone who lived near me a little bit better, to feel more connected to the place I lived in. And I found it interesting that, whenever I walked down Kyle’s street after this, it didn’t seem quite as imposing as it had before.

Of course, it could have all ended right there, on Kyle’s doorstep. That could have been my first and only outing as a Door-to-Door Poet. But I’m pleased to say that it wasn’t. And, after my meeting with Kyle, I’d started planning something very big and very silly.

But before I tell you what that was, we’re going to need to go back a bit. We need to get to know each other a little better first.