Hoops and haiku
Sep. 25—HENDERSON
Pierre Perry has two passions — coaching basketball and writing.
Growing up in Franklinton alongside eight siblings, Perry aspired to play the sport professionally. Around senior year of high school, he switched gears.
"I came to realize I wasn't as good as I thought I was," Perry recalled. Soon after graduating, he enlisted in the Navy and served aboard the USS Coral Sea (CV-43) for four years. Afterward, he signed up with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety as a correctional officer, where he worked for another 26 years before retiring.
While working in the prison system, he saw many people in need of guidance. Recalling how instrumental coaches were in his life, Perry wanted to have that same impact. After retiring from the NCDPS in 2015, the first thing he did was go to the Vance County Recreation and Parks Department and signed up to coach a recreational league.
"I've been doing that ever since," said Perry. He also coaches a rec league in Franklin County, serves as an assistant girl's basketball coach at Vance County High School and has his own Amateur Athletic Union team for eighth-graders. Beyond that, he also works for RHA Health Services in Creedmoor, helping children with mental disabilities with their day-to-day lives and fostering independence.
That's where his writing comes in.
"My coaching and writing are intertwined," said Perry. "The real drive behind it is to inspire the young people and try to keep them on the right track."
Much of his writing seeks to inspire, ponder issues facing the Black community or pass down advice — coaching, of sorts. Adding to his previous 27 published books, Perry is currently writing "Girl Dad," a reflection on his experience as a father with two girls and no sons, as well as his advice for new fathers. Perry hopes to publish it by the end of this year.
But most of his writing is poetry, and he's had a real passion for the art ever since discovering Maya Angelou and Langston, though he didn't start writing his own until later in life.
"With poetry, you can write about anything," said Perry. "Someone can say something, a phrase or a term, and it'll ignite something in me to want to write a poem about it."
He isn't exaggerating — sometimes, he'll hear a phrase and inspiration will strike, a lightbulb flicks on, and he'll write. One of those phrases was "a poet without a pen." He heard it on Monday and an hour and a half later, he had a full poem in hand.
A necessary skill for an artist and a sibling to passion is fearlessness. One of his books, "If I Should Step On Your Toes... Just Say Ouch!" is an example. He heard his pastor use the phrase and felt that inspiration.
"If you read a poem, and it offends you," he explained, "hey, too bad. I'm not apologizing for it. Maybe it'll make you look at yourself."
In other words, "just say ouch."
He's written all sorts of poetry, like haiku, but mostly sticks to free-verse, poetry that avoids strict meters. Finding words that rhyme is easy for him — so lately, he's been challenging himself to avoid it.
"A lot of quote-unquote experts don't take rhyming poetry as serious as others," said Perry. He recalled sending his poetry off to a publishing company years ago and receiving feedback that rhyming made poetry too predictable.
Once upon a time, he kept his writing close to the chest. Nowadays, with a platform by way of self-publishing through Kindle, he lays it all out.
In his work, Langston Hughes gives readers an impression of how society was in his time. Perry hopes his will do the same.
"Someone 50 years from now may understand how things were in 2023," said Perry, "or whenever I wrote those poems."
"One day, when I'm dead and gone," Perry said, "I'll leave my legacy. Hopefully, one day, somebody will say 'Oh!'. They might not know who Pierre Perry was, but they'll know his poems."
Perry has always had copies of his favorite poetry books on his coffee table. His greatest achievement in the realm of writing, he said, was getting published and being able to place his work beside theirs.
