{"id":8653,"date":"2026-02-11T10:31:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/?p=8653"},"modified":"2026-02-11T19:53:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T00:53:53","slug":"get-to-know-john-freeman-02-a-poet-of-the-midwest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/2026\/02\/11\/get-to-know-john-freeman-02-a-poet-of-the-midwest\/","title":{"rendered":"Get to know: John Freeman \u201902, a poet of the Midwest\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Poet<\/span><\/p>\n

In his knit Detroit Pistons cap\u00a0and\u00a0well-loved jeans,\u00a0a ready smile suggesting an openness to conversation,\u00a0John Freeman \u201902\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0seem to fit the traditional image of a poet.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet Freeman, who publishes under the name Cal Freeman, is just that: an award-winning, widely published poet whose third book of verse,\u00a0<\/span>The Weather of Our Names<\/span><\/i>, was published late last year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Yet Freeman, who publishes under the name Cal Freeman, is just that: an award-winning, widely published poet whose third book of verse, <\/span>The Weather of Our Names<\/span><\/i>, was published late last year.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On an invitation from the Detroit Mercy English Department, Freeman charmed a large audience of students,\u00a0staff\u00a0and faculty one\u00a0wet October\u00a0afternoon in the Bargman Room of the McNichols Library.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It was like coming home: His father, John Freeman, was a longtime professor of English and the young John all but grew up on the McNichols Campus.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The McNichols Campus makes an appearance in his newest collection, as\u00a0do\u00a0a number of\u00a0locations across Metro Detroit and Michigan. Also appearing are legendary Detroit sports figures,\u00a0restaurants,\u00a0bars\u00a0and other hangouts.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The poems in\u00a0<\/span>Weather<\/span><\/i>\u00a0explore themes of change, of things lost and remembered, of who we are and were and will become.\u00a0Of food and grief.\u00a0A blurb on the back of the book from poet Dustin Pearson says it is \u201cfilled with Midwestern existentialism, attuned to the possibilities of poetry\u2019s power to create myth of and provide clarity for one\u2019s life.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI saw a theme emerging in my work about the evanescence that happens with places, the way a place can be papered over, have a whole new purpose, but the vestige of what it was will still be there,\u201d\u00a0Freeman\u00a0said.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There may be a reason for that: All the poems were written after the death of his father\u00a0in 2021. One poem,\u00a0<\/span>Stafford Essentials Corduroy Jacket as a Non-Fungible Token<\/span><\/i>,\u00a0describes the jacket he found when emptying his father\u2019s office. \u201cThe coat can\u2019t love you\/the way your father did.\u201d\u00a0(See full poem below.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But as the title of that poem attests, this book has a humor that makes the poems come alive. Several poems explore non-fungible tokens and\u00a0others\u00a0the online business rating system Yelp.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cA non-fungible token is fascinating.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0a token you can buy, but it\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0really exist,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0like when you have a favorite poem and\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>your<\/span><\/i>\u00a0poem, but we\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0own poems, yet still\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0ours. They have this ethereality\u00a0to\u00a0them. I was interested in how you can take these soulless digital phenomena and invest them with real value.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s\u00a0similar to\u00a0what he explores in the Yelp poems. Freeman said he and his wife eat out\u00a0often,\u00a0and he became attached to Yelp during COVID, when restaurants\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0welcoming customers. From his point of view, the\u00a0often-passionate\u00a0reviews of businesses and restaurants \u201cpoeticize the place and ensoul them in a way.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Freeman, who is also a special lecturer in writing and rhetoric at Oakland University, writes most days and, when he isn\u2019t writing, he is reading, finding ideas to explore in his own work. He belongs to a few writers’ groups and serves as Writer-In-Residence with InsideOut Literary Arts Detroit.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Weather of Our Names<\/span>\u00a0is published by Cornerstone Press and\u00a0is available at bookstores and online.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Stafford Essentials Corduroy Jacket as a Non-Fungible Token<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The coat\u00a0can\u2019t\u00a0love you<\/span>
\nthe way your father did.<\/span>
\nIt\u00a0isn\u2019t\u00a0clear how.<\/span>
\nCorduroy\u00a0lined\u00a0in silk.<\/span>
\nTwo breast pockets.<\/span>
\nTwo interior pockets.<\/span>
\nYour father hoarded napkins.<\/span>
\nThis\u00a0much\u00a0you can say.<\/span>
\nIt reveals something.<\/span>
\nAll your father\u2019s annotations<\/span>
\nHave, to this point,<\/span>
\nbeen disappointing,<\/span>
\nhis visitations ludic and oneiric.<\/span>
\nOne note in the margins of<\/span>
\nA Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/span><\/i>
\nsays,\u00a0<\/span>Be\u00a0a\u00a0good inheritor<\/span><\/i>
\nof tropes.\u00a0If I had brothers,<\/span><\/i>
\nthey\u00a0would\u2019ve\u00a0been turned into swans.<\/span><\/i>
\nIt\u2019s\u00a0nearing\u00a0eighty today,<\/span>
\nsuperfluous coat.<\/span>
\nImaginary hands around the shoulders,<\/span>
\nfabric of want.<\/span>
\nYou can almost\u00a0picture them,<\/span>
\nyourfather\u2019s hands crumpling<\/span>
\npaper napkins<\/span>
\nand shoving them deep into<\/span>
\na pocket near his heart.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014 From\u00a0<\/span>The Weather of our Names<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his knit Detroit Pistons cap\u00a0and\u00a0well-loved jeans,\u00a0a ready smile suggesting an openness to conversation,\u00a0John Freeman \u201902\u00a0doesn\u2019t\u00a0seem to fit the traditional image of a poet.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet Freeman, who publishes under the name Cal Freeman, is just that: an award-winning, widely published poet whose third book of verse,\u00a0The Weather of Our Names, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":8656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2026\/02\/freeman-featured-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C1789&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-2fz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8653"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8653"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8658,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8653\/revisions\/8658"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}