It has been a long minute since I have written any poetry. After a five or six year hiatus, this is the second poem I have written in as many weeks. It really does feel good to be exercising my poetry chops once again. Yesterday, I finished a painting and made a print and started a poem. It was an ideal Saturday. Studio life works well for me.

The return to poetry writing is no doubt a direct result of discovering a very talented poet, immersing myself in the reading and discovery of poetry once again, and going for walks. My mind thinks poetically while I walk. I develop lines, ideas, themes. I discard clutter. And I can’t write poetry when I am not reading it. There’s a synergism there.

Of course, the talented poet I am referring to is Jen Sperry Steinorth. Check out her book, A Wake with Nine Shades. I’ve read it twice, now. Great stuff in there. I’ve also read the Kindle version of her forthcoming graphic poem, Her Read. There is no doubt in my mind that this book will be short-listed in 2021 as a fav by many poetry lovers, thinkers and critics.

(Back to my poem.) This new poem feels right. It’s a look back. Writer’s look back as much as we look forward. We cannot help it.

Enjoy.

I Was Once in the Same Room as Ed Sanders

Twice, actually There was the awards ceremony

& the after party After announcing

the winners……….you read from one of your

histories I was not familiar with it

Doesn’t matter

When you called my name you changed

my life I had no intentions of being a poet

no idea what that meant Turns out it

means different things for different

people……….

At the after party my friend who was

a fiction writer drank one too many beers

& called you out……….I thought his story was

good I probably would have selected

it over mine

That’s not true His abrasive remarks awkwardly

chiseled a gem……….but you handled

it well I was impressed

Everyone laughed I’m still……….laughing Everyone

gazed in amazement as you raised it

toward the light That was twenty-

five years ago

I went on to read your book Tales of

Beatnik Glory It made me insanely jealous

I listened to recordings of the Fugs they made

me mildly jealous Years later

I wrote to you You did not write back

I am used to that I sometimes wonder

how my life might have been cut if you had not

selected my poem

or my story & I had not been at

Diane’s house to witness a wiry-headed poet

deflecting……….the anger of an adoring public