When I Was In College, I Lost

Someone In Ireland Asked Me How Many Republican Poets There Were In The U.s., And I Thought Maybe Two. Maybe There Are 10,000 Poets, And Maybe There Are Two Republicans Among Them.

I Am Talking About Poetry. It's Like That Line From [john] Yeats: I Go Back To "where All The Ladders Start/ In The Foul Rag And Bone Shop Of The Heart."

Such Tenderness, Those Afternoons And Evenings, Saying Blackberry, Blackberry, Blackberry.

I Think One Percent Of The Population Attended College When Wallace Stevens And Robert Frost And Gertrude Stein Were At Harvard. Now I Think Forty Percent Of Americans Have Some College Education. That's An Astronomical Change.

Longing, We Say, Because Desire Is Full Of Endless Distances.