How Bobcats Talk

“I just knocked it out like you said—in a single take.” Words of a friend who recently did a public reading of my poem “Bobcat.” Given the constraints of Covid, it was a phone video-to-Insta affair. And yet her reading—done on her patio, in her own time, with the Colorado sun full in her face—is as vivid as any formal performance.

Her video takes place a few feet from the patch of lawn where she and I encountered an actual bobcat. This gorgeous creature sat down near us for a moment and then disappeared. Both entrance and exit were invisible, yet the cat looked absolutely comfortable during his brief visit, fur ruff blowing in the evening breeze. A similar creature now speaks in my poem.

Three other people have gone on camera to read “Bobcat” in recent weeks, and the results have been similarly rich:   a puppet show with piano accompaniment, a voice over featuring a Williamsburg street cat, and a reader sitting on her New Orleans porch surrounded by greenery. Unique voices all, and all true to the spirit of that original moment of human/feline connection.

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To help bolster our feeling of safety during the spring 2020 quarantine, I have invited readers to pick a Means of Protection poem and read it any way they choose. There’s only one restriction:  the videos must be under one minute. All submissions are welcome; please get in touch if you’d like to participate. See @amyclippwriting.com for results.

One family’s take on the poem “Bobcat.” For more reader videos, see @amyclippwriting