On a street lined with shops and restaurants, Jonathan McCallum is someone the tourists and locals of Nashville’s 12 South visit each weekend for his original typewriter-written poems.
Rain or shine, McCallum sets up beside the street on 12th Avenue South every Thursday, Friday and Saturday between Frothy Monkey and Bullets and Pearls Jewelry Store.
With an umbrella propped over his small table, chair and typewriter, he comes geared up to weave words together to encapsulate the thoughts and feelings of the people who approach him.
While some may walk by and acknowledge McCallum, those who take the time to stop for a few minutes are in for short, sweet poetic lines of whatever topic or thought they give him.
The young poet creates a space, in the middle of a bustling street, for complete strangers to share sub and surface-level topics that he makes tangible through his stanzas.
Born in Memphis, he’s had a lasting love for poetry that started during his early childhood.
McCallum went to a small liberal arts college in Franklin, TN called New College Franklin, where he studied philosophy, theology, literature and poetry on a deeper level.
“I feel like for most people, poems are… just weird splatterings of words that you’re supposed to find some deep meaning in, and I feel like most people miss the fact that the point of a poem is to have beautiful words about beautiful things. I just get to share that with people,” he said.
McCallum graduated from college at the early age of 20 and worked as an English teacher for one year before he was inspired to take on a more creative path.
He started his street poetry in Nov. 2023 and has been selling his poems full-time on 12 South since June.
“I saw a guy doing the street thing in New York a few years back, then my friend gave me a typewriter. Now it’s what I do,” said McCallum.
McCallum has shared a few of his works on his Instagram account, jmstreetpoetry, where he also has a link to his website.
In a city where music takes precedence in artistic culture, Jonathan McCallum brings an appreciation for classic literature.
Sitting out in Nashville’s wavering weather conditions might not seem like a very comfortable job, but for McCallum, it is a two-way-street of experience between him and his customers.
“I get to sit outside and talk to people. I get to know a lot about people. People tell me their secrets, their confessions, the things they love, and I just get to write about it, which is incredible,” said McCallum
On Friday, a group of young tourists gathered around to watch McCallum write a poem for Roxanne Street.
Street’s husband has been writing four-line poems for her each day, which he brings with her morning cup of coffee.
She has thousands and saw McCallum’s street poetry as the perfect opportunity to have something special written as a way of thanking her husband.
The poem McCallum wrote for Street is titled “my morning cup of love”.
The only poems McCallum writes for others that he keeps a record of are those which people share on his Instagram account as well as his personal work; the rest leave for good with his clients.
“I wrote one for a couple that was rebuilding a 18th century stone church in Europe to live in. That was the coolest thing ever, that was incredible… and just the knowledge that I have poems I’ve written for people that are hanging up in their nurseries or in their homes, I’m so glad to hear that. It is really cool that I get to write a poem for someone and then I never get to see it again,” he said.
From bachelorette parties to those grieving lost loved ones; McCallum is someone who people seem compelled to share their stories with.
“I love that I have that connection with strangers… I feel kind of like a confessional sometimes, you know, like I’m sitting in my little box and they’ll never see me again, so why not tell me, you know,” he said.
McCallum’s street poetry brings more to the table than just your everyday material item– he brings human connection.
“People from across the world come to Nashville, and then they take a little piece of my art and my soul with them, which is just mind blowing to me still… My job is a constant reminder that everyone is a full person with a life that’s going on, you know, and every stranger that I see is someone with joys and hurts. And there’s just so much to everyone, which is incredible,” said McCallum.
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This article was written by Georgina America
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