Wednesday, March 14, 2012

"For my part I like to live in a classic atmosphere, full of my own gods and to be true to them until I have some better authority than a merely contrary opinion for not being true to them. We all have to learn to hold fast." (Wallace Stevens, letter to Jose Rodriguez Feo, May 23, 1947)


"This is not easy road." (Jan Lewan the Pennsylvania Polka King and erstwhile Ponzi schemer, recently released from prison and now working on a comeback that includes a shift to polka-rap)


Meanwhile, my yard is a mud hole and daffodil leaves are poking up through the snow scum. I am trying to write about what it would have felt like to listen to my son broadcasting the Hindenburg disaster, while I'm also trying to edit somebody else's poetry manuscript, while I'm also trying to organize an 8th-grade breakfast brigade for town meeting and invent a fiddle break for Bob Dylan's song "Senor."

Living a life in poetry is a messy business. I wonder if that's what Stevens meant by "classic atmosphere." I bet not.

1 comment:

Carlene said...

hm.
polka rap.
fiddle break for Dylan.
a lot to ponder. =)

on a practical note, I seem to recall a later episode of The Waltons, where John-boy was reporting on the Hindenburg disaster...not sure if that's helpful, but it did pop out of my mindcloset.

Have a super day watching daffies poke through...