To My Sons
51
Back to Wisconsin. Sharing poems over coffee with George and Phil on a
cold Spring afternoon under the grey skies of Superior, a city whose population
had declined steadily since the beginning of the century. It was that afternoon
that they told me that I was invited to read poems with them during Faculty
Week at the college -- the first time a student was ever asked to take part in the
festivities. I was thrilled of course. It had been a great year for me. I started
publishing poems in places like The Minnesota Review and Carleton
Miscellany, and a couple of other significant literary magazines. I had straight
A’s and was on the Dean's List. I had accepted a fellowship for the graduate
writing program at Syracuse University (from where you, Anton, call me and
read your poems!), complete tuition for the entire degree and a generous stipend
for just writing poetry. I had received a fellowship from Columbia University’s
writing program as well, and a modest scholarship from Iowa’s Writing
Workshop along with a personal note from poet Paul Engle who said if I came
there he’d provide me with an additional stipend for working with the fine
printing press he ran there.
I’m not sure what’s changed over the years, but when I think about the
power of poetry in our times compared to the culture of the sixties and seventies,
I sense a difference. I’m talking about the written word, the single distinctive
collection, the poet whose work takes the reader deep within the reflective
moment where people become one another, where language cannot be
overwhelmed by personality, or celebrity posturing, or sensational event, or
nostalgia, or romantic cliche. “It's rap,” says Joey, “or slams...get with it Dad,
open your eyes.” I open them, but even then a line of a new poem I am writing
appears i