An Unknown Poet

In most of the world, the name Miner Brock doesn't ring a bell.  I googled the name with and without the middle initial W.  I googled the name of his book of poems that I have, Birds That Frequent the Night.  All I found were references to other Brocks and birds called the nightjar.  So, I'm here today to tell you what I know about Miner.

Here's the first thing I know...he's from a little town in western Illinois called Ipava.  He toured the country as a Shakespearean actor and then returned to his roots and worked with young people in various programs.  He helped coach my mom when she was practicing to give a speech in school.  And he was apparently a good listener.

The poems he wrote were of people he knew in the area where he lived.  It happens to be the same area where Edgar Lee Masters hailed from and made famous in Spoon River Anthology.  But Brock's poems are more gentle and in the author's notes he says "Unhappy with some of the unsavory images of life in the Great Mid West, I want to share some of the stories I have listened to...Stories of the niceties of gentle living, of the thoughtfulness and courtesy that have made loyalties and friendships endure, as well as some of the tragic, of the ugly, and of the aggressiveness of the half century past---"

The copy of his book that I have was given to me by my mother, who was given it by her mother, who was given it by Miner himself.  He wrote in the front of the book, "To Jessie Rinker , always room for one more in her heart and her home."

So when you read this poem below, there will be no doubt who it's about:

A Home

Her heart is as big as her house is dirty.
You shudder when you think of going there
But when she scoots a pile of clothes and toys
Onto the floor, under and behind the sofa
So she can sit beside you
A singular warmth makes you know
There will always be room for you,
And one more in her heart.
Somehow her house ceases to be dirty.
It becomes just an untidy home.
A neighbor's child and one of her own
In a running screaming tug-of-war
Over a battered old toy truck...
A hug for each of them...
A look straight into her eyes...
A dilapidated toy sedan from under the sofa...
A slap on each of their butts...
"Now you two get along." 
You know that she lives the beauty of
"Suffer little children to come unto me."