I write to you now from a small college town
somewhere in the United States. The new poets have arrived to begin
their arduous four-year journey for the coveted M.F.A. degree. Last
weekend there was a party to send off the ones who recently
finished. This weekend there is a party to indoctrinate the ones who
just made it. There will be much drinking and talking about what
we’re doing here. This is the point, I think.
Some have come for the community, others under the
delusion of being recognized, finally. "So they left in obscurity
and misery."
In this place, I have come to know many worthwhile
poets (and some not worth quite as much while). I have to say,
however, it’s not about who’s good and who’s not. But it is about
who matters. As a friend said recently, some will leave here more
arrogant and less competent than when they arrived. Others will use
this four-year fantasy-camp to write themselves out of themselves.
But if we’re lucky, we stumble into a small group of people as naïve
as we are: people who think poetry is the most important thing. It’s
what we sing about, talk about, have wet dreams about, and it is
what we do.
Poetry is not about movements or decades or wars.
It’s about individuals making important choices that many times seem
invisible.
On the first day of reorientation into the M.F.A.
program, we were herded into a small room called the "bridge room"
and introduced to each other. We were asked to say what poet we were
reading. Thinking about my own choice, I listened carefully to the
calculated names drop as the circle slowly tried to come to life but
fizzled instead. The last person to announce his poet was my close
friend, Paul White. "I am reading Paul White," he said. Faces became
flushed and people laughed through clenched teeth and looked at
their empty legal pads in front of them, wishing they could be so
bold, wishing it were true for them as it was for him. The die had
been cast. These were political choices, some more effective than
others. But all of them were important. I don’t remember what name
any of the other poets declared, but I remember "Paul White." I then
fell into a small group of poets that would change me forever—not
just inwardly, but outwardly too. Not just as a poet. But as a
human. Over the last four years, we fought, laughed, cried, and
fucked over poetry. For us the time is done, but we are not.
Lives are meant for poetry. And poetry happens on
porches and rivers and at parties and in kitchens, by accident. This
is the fantasy. I hope it lasts forever. But it began here in a
college town at a conference table full of new poets with names on
the tips of their tongues.
Paul White will be the Guest Editor of the Winter 2008 edition of
Mêlée.