The Park Poet

A late-afternoon lethargy had settled upon Washington Square Park, retiring two Frisbee players to a shaded bench and slowing even the scavenging pigeons to a waddle. Peter Chinman, however, perched atop one of the fountain’s pedestals in an oversized straw hat, surveyed the scene with keen intensity. A cardboard sign hung over his shoulders from strands of twine, advertising “Personalized Poems” in thick black Sharpie.

“I’m like adjacent to being a beggar basically,” he said.

Chinman, however, graduated in 2012 from Pomona College, a liberal arts school in Southern California with an acceptance rate akin to many Ivy League universities. In early March, the 27-year-old quit his part-time customer service job, his only source of income, to take up park poetry full time.

“A lot of people say, ‘You’re too smart to do this,’” he said, adjusting his glasses. “I’m much less invested in appearing a certain way, the trappings of success.”

His process begins with a word of the recipient’s choosing. Seasonal imagery, like “tree” and “green,” is popular, as are “serendipity” and “love.” “Esoteric,” strangely, also appears often, he said.

That afternoon, however, beneath the fountain’s mist, a woman offered “waves.” Chinman scribbled his fountain pen onto a piece of scrap paper, the edges of which he had burned with a candle for the worn quality.

“ … no use in clinging to the phase / so unclench the sphincter of your senses / and let the days flow … ”

Chinman entered college on the pre-med track.

“There was a very tectonic period where a lot of my ideas about my future were coming unsettled,” he said. “I just knew that I liked writing.”

He started composing poetry in his junior year, and fell in love with the work of Jack Gilbert and Rainer Maria Rilke.

“Those were the two people who showed me exactly what poetry could do,” he said. “There’s a machinery that happens, and it twists a key inside you and something opens up.”

Following graduation, he travelled the country with his college band, finally settling in the beach town of Scituate, Massachusetts for two years. There, he dove into daily journaling, a practice he had begun senior year.

“So many mornings I spent sunk into a strange joy, learning to phrase myself up from the bottom of the day,” he said, “learning to praise the abject beauty I found myself surrounded by.”

However, he credits a March viewing of Richard Linklater’s film, “Before Sunrise,” with his sudden career change, recalling the scene in which the two main characters pass a “drunk bum” writing poems on a riverbank.

“I thought, ‘I can do this,’” he said.

He scouted locations in Central Park the next day, eventually deciding on the tourist-filled Bethesda Terrace.

“An old man playing his mournful Chinese zither and the two guys with six-foot snakes,” he recalled. “I knew I had reached the right place.”

He returned with a sign, the same as his current, the following day. At first, he was anxious to put it on.

“The idea of it felt so humiliating,” he said. “I ended up just sitting at the edge of the fountain and waiting for people to come up to me, more out of nervousness than any sort of plan.”

But it was a plan that worked. Chinman earned $70.

“Even the filthy pigeons are magnificent / inside the cathedral of this city. / Even the tourists taking photos / of every fountain seem some days / like pilgrims.”

Weather permitting, Chinman makes his daily rounds in either Washington Square Park or Central Park. Often, visitors approach him first.

“You feel these sort of subterranean, magnetic activations going on between you and strangers,” he said. “There is a lot of potential energy.”

Tourist Brooke Whitmire, a slam poetry enthusiast, offered Chinman the word, “unconditional.”

“Sh*tty week,” she said.

Chinman scribbled onto his scrap paper, balling up several drafts into his messenger bag before handing Whitmire the final product.

“This is amazing,” she said, taking a photo. “Thank you.”

Most often, he receives a couple dollars per poem. More rarely, however, he has collected up to $30 for poems that “hit.”

“There’s definitely a specific subset of humans for whom the prospect of a poem is exciting, like when they’re having a hard time,” Chinman said.

He finds that clients often think of him too much like a psychic, however.

“I don’t know you,” he continued. “It’s like they want some strange, weird fun.”

But Chinman enjoys meddling with clients. Those who request the word, “love,” receive a carefully crafted stock poem.

“‘Love is like a train barreling down on us, our minds scream move but our bodies whisper stay,’” he recalled. “Like barbs inside of their sense of love.”

Subverting clients’ expectations keeps his work interesting, he said.

“This needs to be benefitting my writing practice,” he continued.

“To let our lives loose / to time and be brimmed / with a strange bliss.”

During his first week of park writing, Chinman kept his new career a secret.

“I thought it would just distract me,” he said. “Or worse, they might actually convince me not to do it.”

His parents, though both lawyers, responded enthusiastically.

“I’m very, very grateful that I have very supportive parents,” Chinman said.

So far, he has not asked them for any financial assistance. In addition to tips, he receives $69 monthly from a Patreon account.

“It’s now clear to the public, as it has been clear to me for years, how he revels in life,” said Francis Anderson, Chinman’s bandmate and Scituate roommate. “It is so obviously perfect for him.”

One customer that afternoon promised to frame the poem.

“So talented,” she said, handing him $5.

Chinman walked until out of earshot.

“That wasn’t very good,” he admitted, laughing. “I’m sort of this charlatan running around, trying to trick people that I have a certain magic power.”

He recalled an encounter with a young Russian girl.

“‘If I had enough pretension to wear a sign and walk around the park, I could do so much better,’” she had told him.

After reading a second poem, however, she changed her mind. She followed him around the rest of the afternoon, judging each of his works.

“I was so happy that this human was taking it seriously,” he said, “to call out the things that mostly weren’t working.”

An anthology of his Scituate work, “At the Marsh House,” was released last January. Publication has never been Chinman’s goal, however.

“I don’t care how I’m making the money as long as my writing practice is protected,” he said. “This is the biggest space I’ve been able to protect,” he continued, gesturing around the park.

While he talks frequently with Washington Square Park’s tarot reader, Kyler, his favorite characters are the park’s famed “pigeon lady” and her entourage of birds.

He sprinkled some nuts, his own daily snack, among the pigeons gathered at his feet.

“I am the pigeon poet!” he shouted, letting out an almost maniacal laugh.

The crowd looked up, but Chinman appeared not to care.

“It’s just magic,” he said. “It’s all I ever really wanted.”