I hope you’re having a beautiful day. ♡
Today we’re celebrating another JohnnyO Gratitude Day!

Transcription below.

Arnie Carter Interviews John Olander

Arnie:  So, we’re sitting in the backyard here, and I’m sitting with my good friend John Olander. John and I go back about 25 years. We’ve run into each other in a bunch of different circumstances and places, and it’s always, always a pleasure. 

John’s going to open this up with a poem here.

John:  Okay, so Arnie, this poem’s called “Hello Fear.” And it goes like this:

Hello Fear

I know you’re there; you get me with that icy stare.

Though the time be day or night, I cannot run beyond your sight.

You call to me to pause — retreat. You beckon me to choose defeat.

On your advice I wouldn’t try, I make excuses, quit or die.

But now I know the secret fear, I am the one who brought you here.

I nurtured you, while all the time

I did not realize how sublime, was my existence, my own being.

You’ve had it Fear, because now I’m feeling.

We might meet again. You might beckon now and then.

But I made you what you are today, and I own you, Fear.

Better get out of my way.

-JOHN OLANDER

Arnie: (laughs) I love that poem. I love that.

John:  Well, thank you.

Arnie:  So a couple of things about John and I. John and I grew up in Park Hill. Even though we didn’t know each other, we were just a few blocks away from each other. We share the exact same birth date.

John:  Crazy. How ’bout those stars?

Arnie: (laughs).  Yeah, John…you’re a poet — a heck of a poet and a writer.  What do you do that for? What do you get out of poetry? 

John:  You know, actually I started writing at a Denver Public Library program, and it was called Hard Times Writers Group, and it was sponsored by Lighthouse Writers, and it was at Denver Public Central Library. I’ve always been a reader, and I was good in school. I inherited my mother’s brains, but I never really wrote except because I had to. So this was an outreach program at the library, and at the time I was struggling with my own life, in and out of jail, in and out of homelessness, and in and out of productive things to do. So that was a deal that was productive for me. The way the group worked (called Hard Times Writing Group), it would normally have 30-35 people, and only about maybe 30 percent of them were actually homeless, and the rest were just creative people. But it just developed a tremendous synergy and I felt like — you know, the first poem I wrote was a winner, and I could do that for you now. Do you want me to?

Arnie:  Sure, sure.

John:  The prompt was, “Before you begin this, you must end this. Before you end this, you must begin this.”  And the poem goes like this. It’s called the “History Shelf.” It goes,

Forget about the past.

‘Cos it won’t last.

It’s already gone.

And it left fast.

If you don’t embrace

The moment in hand

You’ll end up in 

Nowhere Land.

So do your best each day

To love yourself

And put your history books

On the shelf.

So that’s where it all started. And then when COVID hit, the library group, which I’d been going to for several years, it did disband, but it went to Zoom and there was a lot of turmoil. And then Matt Salis, a great guy who also was involved in that Hard Times Writers Group and also at Lighthouse, he founded a group that started at SAME Café. And I’ve been going to that group ever since, over two years now. And it’s every Thursday morning. And it’s just something that developed. It’s not something I sought or knew that I had the talent for. It just — it came from Spirit. 

Arnie:  Yeah.  And what does it do for you?

John:  Oh, it gives me a way to enjoy myself and feel validated. And also to help other people, just to reach out to them and create a different form of community that I did not know existed.

Arnie:  Yeah, John. I’ve always loved your poetry.

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Transcription by Niki Flow. All errors are mine.