Poetry: Three Mismatched Shoes At The Entrance

He Who Cannot Howl Will Not Find His Pack.

Here In The United States, We Speak With Reverence Of Authentic Experience. We Write Poems About Our Daddies Taking Us Fishing And Breaking Our Hearts By Making Us Throw The Little Fish Back Into The River. We Even Tell The Reader The Kind Of Car We Were Driving, The Year And The Model, To Give The Impression That It’s All True. It’s Because We Think Of Ourselves As Journalists Of A Kind. Like Them, We’ll Go Anywhere For A Story. Don’t Believe A Word Of It. As Any Poet Can Tell You, One Often Sees Better With Eyes Closed Than With Eyes Wide Open.

Poetry: Three Mismatched Shoes At The Entrance Of A Dark Alley.

We Name One Thing And Then Another. That’s How Time Enters Poetry. Space, On The Other Hand, Comes Into Being Through The Attention We Pay To Each Word. The More Intense Our Attention, The More Space, And There’s A Lot Of Space Inside Words.

In Their Effort To Divorce Language And Experience, Deconstructionist Critics Remind Me Of Middle-class Parents Who Do Not Allow Their Children To Play In The Street.