Of Poets and Other Things |
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A number of years ago, I sat in on a university class run by an insignificant poet posing as a hippie. He was insignificant despite the fact that he was widely published. His insignificance arose not from the quality of his poems, which was negligible at best, but from his assumed superiority. Unfortunately, his superiority was not born of original talent and exuberance, as was Whitman�s, but was the result, rather, of a hefty monthly paycheck. Sitting on folded legs atop his desk, it seemed the poet�s main purpose was to convince the young men and women in his class that his idea of poetry was not only the idea they should follow, but the only idea worth following. Some of the students had, through eagerness or simplicity, already bought into the idea; others heeded their instinct and remained skeptical. This was especially evident when their turn came to read from work they had composed for the class, some of which was refreshing in its defiance. The poet, however, in his arrogant, small-minded stupidity, deflected each offering, calmly pointing out what he called �meaningless empty phrases� or a �lack of poetic tension.� I found this amusing, because the tension in the room was enough to make an ordinary person sweat. After the readings had run their course and each student�s balloon had been summarily popped, the poet read from his own work in a pompous and patronizing style, uttering each word as if it had first been placed on a scale, only to find the instrument incapable of measuring such an awe-inspiring burden. When it was all over, the students were visibly relieved. Outside, where the air was fresher and the world strikingly more real, one of the students, an emaciated young man with a sorrowful expression and a blond, feather-like goatee, asked me if I was planning to join the class. When I told him I wasn�t, he smiled and said, �Why not? Don�t you like poetry?� I looked at him and said, �I love poetry.� �Me, too,� the young man said. �Me, too.� Without saying another word, he turned and walked away. A moment later, he stopped beneath an ancient gingko tree and gazed up at its bright yellow leaves. Then he sat down with his back against the trunk, opened his notebook, and began to write. This essay first appeared in The Synergyst. Note: Poems, Slightly Used, a growing collection of work first published in my blog, Recently Banned Literature, can be found here. POETRY COLLECTIONS IN PRINT Available from Cosmopsis Books of San Francisco Winter Poems by William Michaelian ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 US $11.95; $8.95 at Cosmopsis Books 52 pages. 6x9. Paper. Includes one drawing. San Francisco, June 2007 Signed, numbered & illustrated copies Winter Poems displays the skills and abilities of Mr. Michaelian at their most elemental level, at the bone. Wandering amidst a barren world, a world scraped bare, he plucks the full moon like fruit from the winter sky, goes mad and befriends a pack of hungry wolves, burns his poems to keep warm. He is a flake of snow, a frozen old man, a spider spinning winter webs. Spring is only a vague notion of a waiting vineyard, crocuses, and ten-thousand babies. The author is alone, musing, reflecting, at times participating. But not quite alone, for he brings the lucky reader along. I�ve been there, to this winter world, and I plan to go back. � John Berbrich, Barbaric Yawp Another Song I Know � Short Poems by William Michaelian ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 US $13.95; $10.95 at Cosmopsis Books 80 pages. 6x9. Paper. Includes Author�s Note. San Francisco, June 2007 Signed, numbered & illustrated copies Another Song I Know is a delightful collection of brief, resilient poems. Reading them, one by one by one, is like taking a walk through our common everyday world and suddenly hearing what the poet hears: the leaves, a coffee cup, chairs � and yes, even people, singing their songs of wisdom, sweetness, and light. � Tom Koontz, Barnwood poetry magazine |
Also by William Michaelian POETRY Winter Poems ISBN: 978-0-9796599-0-4 52 pages. Paper. ���������� Another Song I Know ISBN: 978-0-9796599-1-1 80 pages. Paper. ���������� Cosmopsis Books San Francisco Signed copies available Main Page Author�s Note Background Notebook A Listening Thing Among the Living No Time to Cut My Hair One Hand Clapping Songs and Letters Collected Poems Early Short Stories Armenian Translations Cosmopsis Print Editions Interviews News and Reviews Highly Recommended Let�s Eat Favorite Books & Authors Useless Information Conversation Flippantly Answered Questions E-mail & Parting Thoughts Poetry, Notes & Marginalia: Recently Banned Literature Collected Poems by William Michaelian A Larger Life Monastery of Psalms Revelation Friends (includes French translation) Summer of Dreams Hunger Is It His Coat? The Boy Who Wrote Letters Forty Days, Forty Nights Papa�s Song (clam chowder blues) The Pilgrim�s Way A Christmas Wish The Teacher The Literary Awakening of America The Healer The Enigmatic Child What Happened to God Reading Tristram Shandy A Prefix of Obscure Meaning He Knows My Only Friend The World I Know We Do Not Need a Poem Three Short Poems The More We Are Looking For I Hear the Earth What Will I Give You? Great Minds Think Alike The Age of Us All I Met My Spirit Claim Denied Summer Days Greek Peppers Another Hard Day James Joyce Singing How Many Stones? At the Armenian Home The Peace Talks The Eggs of March Armenian Music If Poems Were Days Once Again I Lied Frogs One Last Thing Everywhere I Go Up Here On the Hill Pumpkins Winter View What December Said to January Winter Poems Spring Haiku How to Write a Poem, In Three Lessons The Walls Have Ears Why I Don�t Buy Grapes To French Vanilla and All the Other Flavors It Was Early Morning Haiku Someone�s Mother Fall Questions My Old Black Sport Coat The Clerk and the Windmill Roadside Distress, Part 2 Magical Realism (First Prize) Caf� Poetry Night: Two Poems Short Poem for Spring Short Poem for Summer I Find Him Eating Butterflies For the Sister I Never Had An Absurdist Play The Second Act | |
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