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yesterday | today | tomorrow |
Friday |
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my first experience of poetry was probably pop song lyrics of the 1970s. billy joel seemed pretty deep and edgy to me then. graduated from that to rap, new wave, and punk, roughly in that order but with lots of overlap. in college i studied literature, where the poetry taught was moth-eaten and moldy. that dismal exposure led me to writing mocking doggerel to pierce the pretensions of useless education. that all changed when i stumbled upon Howl. one thing led to another and a year later i was studying with the man himself, allen ginsberg. first thought, best thought was the Beats' call but i learned they too revised a lot. but i still thought of poems as something that pounced on you; no use in forcing them. but here i am halfway through august poetry postcard fest, applying a little daily discipline to my usually haphazard catch-as-catch-can "process." like woody says, "80% of success is showing up." |