I Write Poems To Find Out Why

For The Past Thirty Years Or So, Much American Poetry Has Been Marked By An Earnestness That Rejects The Comic. This Has Nothing To Do With Seriousness. The Comic Can Be Very Serious. The Trouble With The Earnest Is That It Seeks To Be Commended. It Seeks To Be Praised For Its Intention More Than For What It Is Saying.

There Are Many Reasons For Violence. This Is Just Something That Sometimes Happens. We'd See It In Treatment Centers - The Child Who'd Suffered Something Awful. Even In The Best Recovery There'd Be A Fear That Everything Would Fall Apart And They'd Become Victims Again. And Their Final Loyalty Was To Themselves. They Couldn't Be Forced. They Preferred To Wreck Everything, Preferred Self-destruction To Surrender. (175)

My Wife's Dying Upstairs And I Can't Do Anything About It. I Look In Her Face And I See The Memories There. I See How I Hurt Her And How I Said The Wrong Things And How I Got Angry And How I Wasn't The Man She Hoped I'd Be. I See That In Her Face And I See She's Going To Die With That. You Think I'm Not Preoccupied?

Other Than Fiction And Poetry I Tend To Read History.

Adolescence Is A Dreadful Period. We Tend To Notice Those Youngsters Who Misbehave And Call Attention To Themselves, But There Are Others, Equally Miserable, Who Receive No Help Simply Because They Are Silent. (41)