I’m pretty sure the purpose of formal education is to eventually figure out that you can forget most of it.
Category Archives: quotes
Day 2, 2023
It’s warm enough for the fishermen.
If they’re lucky the water is calm
enough between rains to fool the catfish.
What do we imagine then, it takes to fool the catfish?
The scent of rain, does it soak in down to them on the other side of the waterline?
Bridges and the Indiana shoreline on the other side of the waterline
occupied by watery versions of us. Are we dragged out of the dry like choking fish when we drowned?
Their fishermen hook Styrofoam and plastic bottles and dry-siders when we drown.
They tell stories of monsters that breathe without gills
imagine themselves pre-evolved without gills
look to the current above at the bottoms of boats the way we ponder the clouds.
Keep on
It’s never been about gates or gatekeepers. I never imagined I’d be one of those cozy poets ensconced and installed in some ivory tower position, confronted with students obliged to respect my institutional authority. I knew that road was crumbling even before I gave myself over to poetry.
I’ve been called a crank, a cynic, a failed dreamer. I’ve been accused of being bitter and of being a fake.
But this poetry business isn’t for the thin-skinned. I know I have a lot to offer, but I also know that if I wanted position and institutional authority, I should have abandoned poetry decades ago. Maybe I’ll end up teaching a workshop again someday. I hope I do. But I’m not in this for the short term accolades. I have ambitions that most are so scared of they lie to themselves and call them impossible.