Intro to Poetry by Reed Turchi

Tuesday afternoons my prof & I 
would meet because I knew the guy 
who supervised the cages, who’d unlock 
the token box so we could swing for free. 
I’d watch as Alan — bifocals sweat-streaked 
& pacemaker pumping — chased pitches shot 
at car wreck speeds. This, he’d shout above 
the iamb thump of swing & miss, this,
he’d turn back to me to say, helmet 
askew, this is poetry — 




					          for Alan Shapiro 

Reed Turchi is a poet and musician from Swannanoa, North Carolina, now living in Brooklyn. His poetry has been published in Poetry, The American Poetry Review, Narrative Magazine, and others, and he is the co-editor of The Swannanoa Review. 

10 November 2025