“Been drinking the same amount of beer this summer but reading a better class of literature.”
Uighur poetry.
Or Indonesian. Afrizal Malna
Or African American. Nicole Sealey.
Ellen Bass poem subjects: fungus, chickens, rain, love, tattoos.
But also too much of the BS coming out of the academy:
“We find out the heart only by dismantling what the heart knows. By redefining the morning, we find a morning that comes just after darkness… We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.”
Sounds profound and deeply sensitive to me.
Or, “During hard times, people turn to poetry.”
Or this Covid 19 related lament from the tenured: “Will we never again fly to a book festival?” The bone and blood poets, shamanism threatening. Or, nominated for the something prize so it has to be worth your attention. It’s an alley that dead-ends, once tough dogs running in circles and hyperventilating.
Besides which, all poets live with this hanging over their heads: “a limitless supply overwhelms an almost non-existent demand.” Not sure who said this about poetry, it might have been the critic Clive James. But it is push coming to shove, for sure.
Use your lack of audience wisely, a wise person told me. I can write to no greater anonymity.
Please visit my website at www.randystark.com and my page at Write Up The Road.