ST. PETERSBURG, FL — When her grandmother died in 2016, Jessica Merker and her family traveled from Florida to New York for the funeral. While there, they visited local attractions, including Central Park.
That’s where the educator, who taught English in the Gainesville area, saw street poets writing publicly on typewriters for the first time.
“I thought it was something really cool and interesting. I felt like there was a spark, but at that time in my life it was just sitting there,” she told Patch. “I didn’t have the time, space or even emotional capacity to do anything with it. Life moved on and I didn’t pause long enough to explore it.”
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Fast forward about seven years, and Merker now lives in St. Petersburg. By day, she’s an attorney, but for the past seven months, she’s also run a fledgling typewriter poetry business, Merk the Moment, in her free time.
She got her first typewriter during the summer of 2022, a portable, gray Olympia SM-3.
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“I immediately fell in love with the idea that you can be forced to slow down, to have this very physical, tangible interaction with the words that you’re typing,” Merker said. “You can make a mistake. There’s no way to erase things. You can’t go back. Once it’s on the page, it’s there.”
The South Florida native added, “When you’re developing as a writer, there’s always an urge to erase, delete and start over, but with a typewriter, your entire process is there on the page.”
She’d long written for herself, mostly poetry, but didn’t often share her work with others.
Merker still had the idea of being a street poet but worried, “Can I even write in public?”
She took her typewriter to Water Fuller Park one day to find out about seven months ago, setting up near the bathrooms.
“It was just me and a typewriter and one little folding table and a stool. That was all. It was good. It felt natural,” she said.
She was approached by a guy on rollerblades who was out with his dog and inquired about what she was doing.
“He was very kind. He asked for a poem about freedom,” Merker said. “I wrote about freedom with dogs and the lake and roller blades. I’d say that’s the moment Merk the Moment was born.”
Now, she has about nine typewriters and regularly sets up her typewriter outside businesses throughout Gulfport and St. Petersburg and at markets, offering poetry on demand based on topics suggested by clients. She also takes commissions through her website.
Merk the Moment is a recurring vendor at the Sunshine Market at Midtown Tampa and Armature Works Second Sunday Market in Tampa, and can also be found at the upcoming Shopapalooza Festival in St. Petersburg.
Merker has been asked to write poems about everyday happenings as well as pieces to commemorate special moments, like weddings, anniversaries and even eulogies.
“I think it’s really cool to help somebody find words when they have so much to say but they don’t know where to start,” she said. “I know that everybody has a story.”
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