‘Let My People’ started life in mid-summer, 2023, when I was attending a show of bluegrass-folk music and had the thought of linking two radically unrelated words as the title of an as-yet-unwritten poem, ‘bureaucratic jazz.’
From those two words, I created over a period of several days ‘Bureaucratic Jazz,’ a poem that seemed to be a glimpse into a large uncharted territory.
For the poem, I created some characters who could take action and whose actions could relate, in some manner, to each other. They were, in a way, a community of characters, and they have continued in many of my poems ever since.
I grew not to like the title ‘Bureaucratic Jazz,’ mainly because I’m not much of a fan of jazz. And, without ‘jazz,’ there was no need for ‘bureaucratic.’
So, I changed it to ‘Let My People’ as a way of emphasizing the community of these characters and also as a half-echo of the exhortation of Moses: ‘Let my people go.’ I always like to drop in a biblical reference.
I started to create poems that gave some of the back story and future story of the characters, one of which was ‘Zing’ about their early years and another ‘Do Not Be Afraid’ about a later period.
Somehow, in November, 2024, I got the idea to link them together with the original poem functioning as the first section NOW and, then, ‘Zing’ as BEFORE and then “Do Not Be Afraid’ as LATER.
Patrick T. Reardon
1.21.26
Written by : Patrick T. Reardon
For more than three decades Patrick T. Reardon was an urban affairs writer, a feature writer, a columnist, and an editor for the Chicago Tribune. In 2000 he was one of a team of 50 staff members who won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. Now a freelance writer and poet, he has contributed chapters to several books and is the author of Faith Stripped to Its Essence. His website is https://patricktreardon.com/.