Poverty Creek Journal: On Life and Running

by Gardner Thomas, Lisa McInerney (foreword)

Over the course of one year, Thomas Gardner records his runs. Fifty-two entries, none exceeding a paragraph. Each run is simultaneously captured in its precise moment and opened up to something timeless and limitless.

Radiant acts of attention illuminate every we are in the runner's shoes, seeing the play of light and shade on the path ahead of us. Yet we are in the runner's mind, with spiritual improvisations that turn from the twinges of Gardner's body to meditations on grief personal and national, and to the works of such poets as Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman and Elizabeth Bishop.

As the seasons and miles pass, Gardner moves through inner and outer landscapes. Freed by disciplined physical effort, the runner's mind roams and mourns and remembers. Luminous with beauty, Poverty Creek Journal is a singular and remarkable work, a miniature marvel of nature writing, philosophy and poetry.

Genres: Nonfiction

87 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 29, 2024

Reviews

[tom meadham · Rating 4 out of 5]

come away from reading this with a burning desire to get back into running. i also came away with an elongated reading list too. gardener’s musings and quotations from literature were wonderful to read.

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is for people who run and enjoy poetry. I would categorize myself as dabbling in both, though not well. I’m a below average runner and would venture to say that my poetry reading and analysis tends to follow a similar pattern.

That said, there were moments of clarity in Gardner’s post-run reflections that really resonated with me. I appreciated his notes on grief, the natural world, and the habit of running. His grappling with the sudden loss of his brother, I found to be quite moving and I appreciated his references to what he was reading at the time that he went for his runs.

Around page 60 though, Gardner began associating biblical passages and religiously-flavored musings with certain runs, which I found myself sharply annoyed by (that’s deconstruction and religious trauma for you, folks!). That annoyance left me hesitant to engage with the final few journal entries, and for good cause (for me) I think.

But ever since finishing this slim volume, I’ve found myself reflecting on my own running journey and relationship to religion and I think I can understand why Gardner continued to bring up biblical verse alongside poetic and the tracking of his mileage.

Religiously-inclined people proselytize constantly about the sense of peace, connection, and spiritual uplifting they get from attending church and engaging in worship with their community. I remember being sort of mystified by this as a kid growing up in a Catholic (read: rigid) environment. The most engaged I ever felt while attending mandatory mass on Sundays was when I tried to figure out just what exactly they meant when they said we were literally eating the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The rest of the time I spent admiring the stained glass windows or trying not to laugh at whatever my rambunctious younger siblings were doing during sermons and psalms. I never felt a sense of reverence that wasn’t forced, and my relationship with god was doomed from the moment a pastor told me that animals don’t have souls and therefore, don’t go to heaven. But my review would be longer than this book is if I share all my thoughts on my religious upbringing, so I digress.

While I haven’t attended mass in quite some time, strangely enough a sense of spirituality is something that continues to come up for me when I go for long distance runs. Just the other day I was telling my partner that sometimes when I hit a certain point on my long runs, I feel what the religious people from my childhood described I should be feeling as a result of my faith—a profound sense of serenity, mental clarity, and joy.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am firmly seated on the fence between agnostic or atheist and Christopher Hitchens remains at the top on my reading list.

All I’m saying is that when Gardner’s reflections dipped into passages like:

“At about eight miles, it happened. I could show you the place. My legs started to feel heavy and then, within a few steps, something deeper came alive. How to describe the feeling? It was as if one sort of fiber had been exhausted and another had come awake, something there all along. I felt the difference, hitting the ground with a slight jar… Simone Weil talks this way about attention. To think of it as ‘a spiritual discipline.’ Find a subject just out of reach, for which you have no aptitude and allow yourself to come up empty. Now wait, ‘not seeking anything, but ready to receive.’ Sun reaching down through the morning fog. My awkward gait. The light leaning in. ‘Attention, taken to its highest degree is the same thing as prayer. It draws God down. Think of the parables. Attention is the lamp filled with oil, awaiting his coming. And if he’s late and our lamps burn out? There’s oil in the jar, there at your side, hidden away for the day it’s needed.’” - p. 58-59

“I suppose I thought God was trying to get my attention. There is a way that music calls us, underneath the words. That’s what Frost was getting at. Eliot too, those half-heard voices tugging at him and nudging him in his sleep. Skeins of autumn color, voices through the trees. Wake up. Wake up now.” - p. 64

“The Roanoke half marathon. I’ve been pointing towards this race all fall, but ended up running in a fair amount of pain and slower than I’d hoped. At some point, in almost every race, you get lost. You open up your eyes and realize you’re in trouble. Your heart rate rises, your concentration buckles, and you’re suddenly flailing around inside… But there’s something else to look at. The body does have limits... But go on and think of what you could build there, ‘sentence by shunning sentence,’ your words most alive where they’re most disappointed in themselves. Why else would you race? Why return, day after day, year after year?” - p.72

I get what he means. And I think other runners will too.

[Noora · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple day to day journal of a runner, where we see what he does while running, and share his thoughts as well. He describes some of the events happening in his life, and how each takes over his mind each day.

[abding · Rating 4 out of 5]

“The body does have limits, and your fingers will eventually fumble everything you love. But go on and think of what you could build there, ‘sentence by shunning sentence’, your words most alive when they’re most disappointed in themselves. Why else would you race? Why else would you go back there, year after year?”

pg 71-72

Love the format. The daily journal entries kind of remind me of what I’m doing on strava. Gardner’s just way way better at it because he’s probably like 50 and it also doesn’t hurt to be some kind of literature professor.

Gardner if you ever read this, know that I’d enroll in one of your classes (assuming you are a professor).

Now I’m wondering whether any of my professors ever kept similar journals and how good they’d be.

[Karen Gaytán]

I started this book last year as a companion to my training, and when the winter came around and my running lost its pace, so did my reading. Glad to pick it back up as I get in the headspace for an upcoming race and need spiritual grounding.

As someone guilty of filling my headspace with endless tasks and preoccupations, Gardner's meditations reminded me of the power of stillness and positioning the body to let consciousness turn inward. Running as a metaphor for the human spirit, finding our rhythm, stumbling more than once, facing fear and horror, finishing the race.

[Armen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Allow yourself to come up empty.

[Lauren · Rating 4 out of 5]

*Spoiler*

The pages about his brother’s passing were my favourite part. Some visceral, sharp moments of grief captured perfectly