National Poetry Month 2026 Spotlight: Joshua Davis

As a special segment to celebrate National Poetry Month, today's episode spotlights Joshua Davis, Streets Manager and resident of Nederland. Read more about him and his poetry in the April 2nd edition of the newspaper or on the website.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Hello, my name is Jamie Lammers, and welcome to the Mountain Ear Podcast. This slot is typically reserved for our Music of the Mountains edition of the podcast. But this week I wrote a historical piece talking about the performance history of the Grateful Dead here in Colorado in anticipation for a very jerry band coming to the Caribou Room next month. You can read the full story in the April 9th edition of The Mountain Ear. This week, in lieu of a Music of the Mountains episode, I am featuring a spotlight for National Poetry Month. Today, we'll be speaking to Netherland town resident Joshua Hayes. On March 22nd, 2026, I went to Joshua's home to interview him in person. This interview has been touched up every here and there. But for the most part, it is left unedited. It's just me and Joshua in his living room. Every now and again, my phone will go off. Or his dog will come up to try and lick my face. Otherwise, I wanted to leave this conversation as untouched as I possibly could. We'll even sign out of this week's episode with Joshua reading two of his own poems. So now, here is my interview with Joshua Davis. Alright. So, uh, do you mind just introducing yourself real quick?

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Yeah, my name is Joshua Davis. I'm a streets manager for the town of Netherland here. I've been a writer and a poet since I was 16. I'll be 45 at the end of May. I like the evolution of like what writing used to be to what it is now, as far as the expression process goes. And I just think it's good to keep growing into something you love and uh nurtured parts of yourself that need to be uh expressed, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And uh yeah, so what what got you into poetry in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

You know, when when did you when did that kind of Yeah, when I was a teenager, I was like, you know, I had a lot of normal angst and also some a lot of trauma that I didn't really know how to work through a process and just wanted like this expression and it was actually like heavy metal music back then that made me just kind of like what are they writing about? Like what are they they getting out in these this like hyper expressive atmosphere and and uh yeah I just started writing and then I started like reading it to people and trying to like get it out there to other people and connect with other people that way, you know?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

Yeah, absolutely. And and what was the w are there some are there inspirations that have kind of stepped out to you over the years in in terms of you know where you got started and how you developed since then?

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Oh yeah, definitely. Like, you know, just as far as poets go, like loved E. E. Cummings when I was a teenager. Uh Charles Bukowski want to drink in my twenties. You know, everybody that drinks in their 20s wants to be Charles Bukowski if they're a writer, you know. And uh, you know, as it's progressed, you know, I'm a big fan of like Ruby Car these days and just kind of more of that like even Broadagin as well, which you broad again has a lot of really awesome kind of shorter pieces that I just like dig the the expression with the lack of structure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

I just finished trout fishing in America because my mom got that for Christmas for me uh as a Christmas gift like two, three years ago, something like that, and I finally got around to reading it. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Yeah, it's really good. That's good. Yeah, he wrote a lot of really good short stories in poetry. It's really but like he's like not talked about enough these days.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

Yeah. Yeah. My mom just kind of offhandedly remembered the book, which is yeah, I don't know. But yeah, and so what over over the last, you know, it's been almost 30 years, I guess. So, you know, what is what has inspired you most about poetry and kind of kept you coming back to that to that medium?

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Like I said, I think it gives you a way to, or it's given me a way to express things that I would internalize otherwise. Um, I think that, you know, kind of culturally, and especially as men, we're kind of pushed to uh push things down, to keep them to ourselves, to not express our emotions in healthy ways. And you know, I found, especially, you know, going through life and doing trauma work and just trying to like evolve in my own mind, you know, as far as being a a more complete human being, that like it still has that and also offers a chance to like if there's some way that you're writing about something affects someone else in a positive way when they read it, or if it makes sense to somebody and helps them through something, then like to me that's like the the purpose of artistic expression. You know, is to give somebody else like a an outlet as well, or a like a conduit to to fill things, you know, and go through things and process things.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

You were talking to me a little bit before we started this uh interview about how you know you've you've delved into other forms of writing, you've written short stories and things along those lines before. What about what about poetry has stuck out to you as the format that is most expressive to you? You know?

SPEAKER_00 5:50

Oh, the freedom in it, yeah. The freedom in it, you know. Yeah. There's a lot of like, like I said before we started recording, you know, when I was younger, it would just turn into like a Dr. Seuss rhyme. Everything had to just be da-da-da-da-da across the board, and and then you get more and more into it, and you read more, and you listen to more like spoken word type stuff, and then you just realize there's just so much freedom, you know, in being a poet and like how you can write and what the structure can be and uh like what the expression is allowed to be, and it's just good.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And is so how long have you been in Ned? How long has have you kind of lived in this area?

SPEAKER_00 6:29

In July. It'll be 18 years.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so in what ways has living in this mountain area especially kind of in influenced your writing and poetry in general and inspired some of the things that have developed along the way?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

You know, I gotta say, you know, like I I grew up in Alabama, and like, you know, I definitely felt like it was uh a stifling atmosphere. It seemed to be a little more dangerous to be different, you know, which made things kind of feel like if you were different, you didn't want to be yourself around certain people, and you know, and then I moved here, you know, and granted I was already late 20s or 28. Um when I moved here, and I think it was, you know, this is a a different place, you know. Uh people up here are all kind of here for the same reasons, you know. They want to be individuals, they want to be different in many ways, and uh everyone kind of like seems to have a level of acceptance and um kind of keeping to themselves that I never really experienced growing up. So living here it seems to be like a an easier place to to express myself without fear of judgment as much, I guess. And also it's just more of a liberal mindset as far as acceptance of everyone, you know, and it's beautiful. There's no lack of inspiration when you go outside, you know, like you go on a hike anywhere within 30 miles here, you know, and you're gonna find something that's just gonna make you sit down and think about it for a minute, you know?

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

And is there uh how have you have you kind of gotten like have you you gotten your poetry out in any specific way? Have you mainly just written it to express yourself, say express yourself, share it with people that that you know? You know, how have you gotten it out there, I guess?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Um, you know, I've I've gotten a few pieces in the in the mountaineer over the years. Um in my early twenties, I was like way into like spoken word poetry. And I had this whole shtick, you know, like this Southern Baptist preacher had like a flat black brim hat and like a little white collar, and I just laid it firing brimstone for everybody, you know, and like it was a nice little little shtick to get across, you know. And but now it seems like it's a lot more like just trying to get published where I can, get it out there to people, share it with people online. You know, I share a lot on my personal Facebook page and Instagram and stuff, and you know, things like that. You know, I it would be nice one day to to publish, but you know, it's kind of there's that thin line between like, is it like something I want? I get for me, I get really wound up if I start thinking like about the audience too much, like am I writing what the audience wants to hear? You know, instead of just uh instead of just writing for myself.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

For sure. Is there anything that you hope people will will take away from from your poems when they see them online or share them however you can?

SPEAKER_00 9:24

One thing from like I I had to back to uh growing up and it took me a long time to to understand uh when I begin my healing. Um you know, I had years of addiction. Now I'm coming up on eight years of sobriety off next week. And I think what I try to do is just write about my experience in hopes that like anyone else dealing with those things can be inspired by the fact that like it does get better at some point. You know, if you keep looking at things, things do get better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Has there been anything about in particular the the community of poetry here in that that has that has stuck out to you?

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah, I I think like I said, it's like the the freedom of expression and how everybody has something uh different to say. You know, about the same place and the same situation. That's like a perspective or perception that everyone has that like really amazing putting it down to like what's the two regular stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Absolutely. Uh yeah, I don't know. Is there is there just anything else about uh your your work here in Netherlands or the the you know stuff you write or anything else that you talked about that you want that you want people to know about or yeah I think yeah I think it's just like I said, I just want to be able to like express myself in hopes that like if someone else is going through something like that then they can they can read it and feel inspired or or at least like you know not alone.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

I think a lot of that's what's happened. One thing we learned I learned in uh recovery years ago is that the opposite of addiction is connection. And I think that for a lot of people that go through addiction like that, they you know that's it, they always wanted to fit in somewhere and belong to something I always kind of felt alone. But like if you can find a way to connect with other people, like through something as powerful as Ryan, I think that that's uh really important enough. Life's hard for a facelifer. Cooper, you are a sweetheart.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Thank you so much, everybody, for tuning in to this special National Poetry Month spotlight episode of the Mountain Ear Podcast. We'll be back very soon with another podcast episode. Be sure to subscribe wherever you're listening Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Podchaser, or anywhere else you listen to your podcasts. If you want to support the Mountain Ear in general, be sure to subscribe today by heading to the MTNEAR.com. If you have any questions or suggestions for any of our team, you can reach out to me at media at the mountaineer.com, my co-host, Tyler Hickman, at T Y L E R at the Mountain Ear.com, our editor-in-chief, Barbara Hart, at infothemountaineer.com, or general inquiries at frontdesk at themountaineer.com. And now, to close out the episode, Joshua Davis is reading two poems he has never shared before. Thank you for listening.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

This one's called I was a child. I spoke a word piece about anger. I was a child, not a mediator, not a mood regulator, not the emotional shock absorber for a grown man's anger. Simply a child. And sometimes I still say that softly to myself, like I'm reminding someone who forgets. I was a child. It was not my job to study the weather of him, the tightness in his jaw, the weight of his footsteps, or how silence could thicken right before it broke. I learned to listen before I learned to speak freely. I learned to shrink before I learned to stand tall. I thought that was maturity. It was fear. He was supposed to protect me, instead, I became an expert in survival. Navig navigating his mood like it was a household chore. Take out the trash, do your homework, whatever you do, don't upset your father. I swallowed anger like it was something dangerous, held it under my tongue, locked it behind my ribs. Because children who cry get punished, children who protest get punished, children who feel too loudly get punished. So I stop being anything but obedient. But anger doesn't disappear, it waits. It waits in the body, it waits in the nervous system, it waits for adulthood, it waits for autonomy, it waits for the moment your body finally says enough. It's in the flinch when someone sighs too hard, it's in the way my chest tightens over something small like a delayed plan or a minor inconvenience. A moment that should not feel like danger, but does. This anger isn't cruelty, it's a child who never got to scream. And afterwards, I always feel tired. Not from the moment, but from the years. Years of hypervigilance, years of bracing, years of confusing survival with personality. I never wanted to be angry like him. That fear lives in me, the fear that if my voice gets too loud or my frustration shows, I am becoming the very thing that hurt me. But here is what I am learning, that this anger is not cruelty, it is grief. It is the sound of a silence child makes when he is finally safe enough to speak, and that realization is often quiet, almost tender. Maybe the anger rising now is not proof that I am him, maybe it is proof that I am no longer afraid. There is a strength that grows in sunlight, confidence, safety, and encouragement, and there is a strength forged in darkness, ears pressed to doors, heart racing in footsteps, and body always ready. I built a second kind, but I deserved the first. I deserve softness, I deserved protection then, I deserved a childhood that did not feel like combat training, and I deserve peace now. Say it with me, I deserve protection then, and I deserve peace now. Not someday, not after I fix everything, not after I become smaller or quieter or easier, but now. I am not the storm that he was, I am the child who survived it, and I am learning to put the thunder down. Yeah? I'm working on like trying to get back into like how to get it like the spoken word side of it. Yeah. So I could express it with it again. But like I said, my mind always goes to like like don't fall into that cadence. Yeah, yeah, for sure. You want to have more? Yeah. This one's called What We Hide. What we hide is often what holds us hostage. I know that now. But for most of my life I thought survival meant silence. Silence about things that happened in childhood, silence about the fear that follows you into adulthood. Silence about the weight you carry even when everyone around you thinks you're fine. So I learned how to numb it. Alcohol, drugs, anything that can quiet the noise in my mind. And for a while numbing seemed to work. Because when you numb the pain, you can pretend it isn't there. You can smile, you can function. You can convince the world and sometimes yourself that you're okay. But pain doesn't disappear because it's ignored. It waits, and eventually it has to be heard. Four years ago on December 2nd, everything I had buried finally caught up with me, and I had what the doctors called a nervous breakdown. Three days in a hospital bed, doctors using words that suddenly explained so much, CPTSD as if it needed to be more complex, major depressive disorder, two diagnoses that traced their roots all the way back to childhood trauma, two new labels attached to my name. By that time I had already been sober for years. Sobriety taught me something that numbing never could. That when you stop numbing the pain, the pain begins to speak. It shows up in panic and heavy mornings, and days when your own thoughts feel like a storm you can't escape. I did not like the feeling of medication. It felt like I was living in someone else's body. So I made a decision, not a perfect decision, not an easy one, but an honest one. I was stopped hiding from my own mind because I had finally learned something that was painful that felt painfully true. If I do not address my trauma, it will address me. Some days are still heavy, some days depression still tries to convince me that I'm broken or weak or alone. But I've learned something else along the way. The world is full of people carrying invisible battles. People smiling while quietly suffering, people showing up to work, raising families, living their lives while navigating storms no one else can see. Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is stop pretending we're the only ones struggling. So if today feels heavy for you, if your thoughts are loud or your heart is tired, or the past feels closer than it should, please remember this. There is no shame in being an emotional human being. None. And if today is a bad day, that doesn't mean your story ends here. Sometimes healing isn't dramatic, sometimes it isn't inspiring. Sometimes healing is simply this waking up tomorrow and trying again. Because the truth is the bravest thing I ever did wasn't getting sober. It wasn't surviving trauma. It was finally deciding that my pain didn't deserve my silence anymore.