EASTHAMPTON — An old photo can flood your mind with memories.
That’s what happened to Easthampton resident and author Gary Metras when he looked at a photo of his father as a 3-year-old child from 1926, posed for a family portrait alongside his 13 siblings and their parents in the Aldenville neighborhood in Chicopee.
“I was looking at them all, and I decided that the way all of the siblings were lined up by age, it almost looked like bricks in a wall, and the title poem started with that, looking at the photograph. And my own memories of my father talking about his brothers and sisters and some of their history,” Metras explained to Reminder Publishing.
That photo became the book cover for “Counting Bricks,” Metras’s latest book of poetry and the 10th one he’s had published. The book explores the role of family in one’s life and the generosity, heartfelt sensitivity, compassion, sweetness and toughness that come with that role. The poems, individually and collectively, serve as a poignant testimony to family, its beauties and faults, all realistically expressed in verse but underlaid at all points with affection.
The inaugural poet laureate of Easthampton in 2018, Metras taught at Hampshire Regional High School for 31 years before retiring in 2003. He then taught at Springfield College for six more years. Before getting into education, Metras worked a plethora of jobs and served in the U.S. Air Force as an air traffic controller.
A Chicopee native and graduate of Chicopee High School in 1965, Metras’ latest work more specifically focuses on his memories growing up in the area as well as his recollection of his father’s family, his relationship with the family and the generational changes throughout his life as it relates to family, love and marriage, teaching experiences, military service and other topics. The book contains 45 poems, along with a 10-part long poem.
“Family was pretty important to my father even though a lot of the brothers and sisters didn’t keep daily contact. We got together on holidays, some of them with my cousins, and we would go to local lakes, have picnics and go swimming in the summertime. My father and uncle taught all of us young kids how to swim and stuff like that,” Metras said. “There are other memories like that here and there throughout my life. They [Metras’ father, aunts and uncles] referred to each other at weddings and funerals as brother number 3, sister number 7, that kind of stuff.”
Seeing his father’s family interact as he grew up and eventually living a full life himself, Metras had generational storytelling on his mind when writing this new work. These themes and thoughts were especially tangible as his own and only granddaughter was born in the midst of writing these poems.
“That just got me thinking more and more deeply about generational changes in families, and family traditions and all of those important things,” Metras added. “Family and family traditions are not that important to a lot of people in America today with all the changes that have been going on throughout the country the last 40-50 years, with people moving here, there, and everywhere. I grew up in Chicopee, and I still live eight miles away.”
By writing about his own experiences growing up in Chicopee public housing in the 1950s and 60s, Metras illustrates vignettes and memories from that time period. In the book’s long poem, “Children of the Projects,” Metras recalls the culture of his neighborhood, which was built to house returning veterans and their families like his father, and he notes the difference in class consciousness at that time.
“We didn’t have any inkling of being low class or anything like that. Not even working class, as being a derogatory term. But most of the people in the projects were all working-class people; they worked in several of the factories in Chicopee and Springfield. My father was a bricklayer,” Metras said. “We didn’t look down on ourselves in an economic way, as too often what’s become of working-class people throughout our country and our culture.”
Other poems in the book highlight love and marriage, his experiences as an educator, his time serving in the military and other general life topics that he said he hopes many can relate to.
Metras explained that when brainstorming this new book, he decided poetry would be the best medium to recall and write about these memories in part because of his experience as a poet, but also because the writing form allowed him to capture the memories and feelings that came from so long ago. He credited his high school English teacher for helping him locate his passion for the medium and exposing him to the greats that guided his growth in poetry.
“Poetry just came to me naturally as a way of thinking and forming words, and stanzas and things of that nature,” Metras said. “But I think that since a lot of these memories [of family and life] came to me — some of them came in a dream and I’d wake up remembering something that happened to me when I was 8 years old, 10 years old, something like that, that I had forgotten about originally. So, I thought about that, meditated on that and wrote it out.”
Metras said he hopes readers can relate to his shared memories and experiences from growing up in a familiar American family.
“I think that’s true of any good book of poetry or fiction, and any memoir a person writes. It’s going to open up doors in the lives of all the readers so they can compare their lives with the author’s life experiences. Same is true with any good book of poetry. There’s going to be little moments here and there, poems here and there, that both really awaken something in emotion or memory inside a reader. Others will, others will not. But there will always be some that will just open something inside of the reader’s heart, mind and soul,” he added.
Counting Bricks is now available at Broadside Bookshop in Northampton, Book Moon in Easthampton and on Amazon. Readers can also order the book directly through publisher Dos Madres Press, Inc at dosmadres.com.
