David Michael told this story recently:
I’m a harpist in Port Townsend, was a good friend of James.
I met James in 1991, the first year I was here.Sometimes in those days, a captain on the ferryboat would not let me play on the boat. I had been locked off the local ferry, but I was allowed to busk in the Flagship Landing, right next to the ferry dock.
David Michael tells his story at a Big Joy fundraiser at the Port Townsend Unitarian Fellowship
So I was playing my Celtic harp there, and along comes this man who gave me the biggest smile, and he gasps and says, “Oh, I’ve died and gone to heaven.”
Then he flopped himself on the ground, laying in front of me, blocking traffic. He was sighing and gasping with joy. Finally, he gets up and throws his arms around me, and says, “Oh, darling, I love your music! I’m a poet and I would love to get together with you and do a collaboration!”
And I’m thinking to myself, who is this guy? “Uh, maybe I could see some of your poems first?”
And he says, “Well, I didn’t introduce myself. I’m James Broughton, and I’ll go get you a book out of my car.”
And I said, “Oh, you’re James Broughton. Oh, wow!” OK, and I’m thinking to myself, I know I’ve heard of James Broughton, and it was the Alan Watts book. I knew that poem, “This is It.” I was just putting that together when he came rushing back with a book of his poems [Special Deliveries], and he gave me a big hug and we exchanged phone numbers.
I went home that night, and I just could not put this book down. I called him the next day, and said, “I love your work, too. Let’s get together and do something.”
So we did several performances, entailing him reading a poem, and I’d improvise a vignette for 10 or 12 seconds, and I was like the bookmark between his poems. After he got to know my music better, he would sing to my tunes. What a remarkable meeting!