The other night I met a girl at a bar
And she told me I could not be a writer.
I could not possibly be a writer. Astounded,
An entire alternate history rushed before my eyes.
I would have married that woman who was good for
me.
I would have gone to football practice, instead of that Springsteen
concert.
I would have worked with my father, I would have lived in
Hungry Hollow.
I would be zit free fat free Lutheran unthinking investing in shipping,
And real-estate.
I would have been as dull, and solid, as a post planted in concrete.
You would have met me at a party, I would not have been in my room
Typing.
This poem would not exist.
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11 comments:
That is a profound last line, buddy. Pro-Found. P.S. I know I'm slacking off, but I'll catch up this weekend, promise.
You're telling me. When your drunk, it just really blows you away.
That girl I met still stupifies me.
She sounds crazy. Was she crazy?
No, just young and drunk. She was a junior at the U of M, an English major. She didn't write, but she said the writer's in her class were all very self-confident, the opposite of me, apparently. She thought I wasn't confident because I took a few minutes after sitting down to notice her and start talking to her. Now that I think about it, she might have been crazy.
The writers in her class have not yet tasted the bitter brew of rejection. From everywhere they sent their stuff. Like I have.
It seems to me the writers I know whose work I admire are ALL fairly neurotic & insecure. And the couple writers I've met who did seem confident were not-so-talented posers. Maybe they were even faking their confidence, I don't know.
But hey, at least you got an incredible poem out of the experience.
I agree, anonymous one. A certain Pulitizer Prize winner came to a workshop I was at, brimming with confidence, and he turned out to be a huge jerk. He is a writer, a good one sometimes, but unpleasent to actually deal with in the real world.
Thank you for the poem compliment!
When I was a young man, we would love to get put down by drunk college girls. We would go to bars just to get put down. You writers these days, you're SOFT.
You're too young to be this genius.
Thanks, John Iwanski! (If, in fact, you were referring to me)
Ah, genius. That word that makes you think once you're referred to it, in any way, by anyone, everything else will be easy pickings. While in fact it means your probably are unhappy in some way, and will remain so forever, until you are dead. Perhaps the most bittersweet curse ever bestowed upon humankind...
You're exactly right, kid.
If you are indeed a genius, as I speculated yesterday, that doesn't mean you're going to be rich and powerful. More likely, it means a lifetime of learning how to put up with bullshit.
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