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A Night to Remember



It’s not every day you say you met the Poet Laureate, but

Yesterday was such a day.  There were others there, of course,

But they were not so aware, as was I.  The crowd hushed and



Out rushed the object of our joint affections, to sit quietly while

Introduced.  A college president appeared with obligatory face time

And then English Professor with requisite exquisite laud; they applaud



And then to it.  Robert Pinsky stands, applause dies (not necessarily

At that explicit moment) and poem is read.  He pauses to state he is

Not the author and asks for a show of hands of all who recognize



The author of the verse.  My hand raises and I note with perverse pleasure

How few raise with me.  Robert Frost, of course, as I live again the

Honeysuckle’s spray, the crumbling earth and stiff metaphor.  And then



He reads a poem of his own from Jersey Rain.  His syllables string together

Suggestively in our collective ears.  A pause; applause and on to another.

An epic, he reads the shirts off our backs and back to orient us as to that



Linen’s origin.  Now to questions and answers, as the obligatory tired old

Saws are trotted out.  Where does your inspiration come from?  How do you

Break your writer’s block?  What does a poet laureate do?  He answers with



Patience and even wit, demonstrating the charm that no doubt factored into

The Library of Congress’ designation.  No one wants a crusty old grouch for

A spokesman, and a Gucci smile is a bonus as well.  And then, a real question



Is asked, I know this to be so, because I asked it.  The only real question asked

That night.  I was there.  Just ask me and I’ll tell you.  The dreaded question

Tumbled out, “With all the change in form and function brought on by the



Internet, what do you see, in the future of Poetry.”  He missed the rhyme, implicit

In my query, and proceeded to answer in prose, “who knows,” and to support with

Analysis, from past paralysis that no one knows where art goes and moved on to the



Next question as I sat rebuffed.  Several more requests and a denouement of reading,

Jersey Rain itself and then thunderous applause.  We filtered out.  I stood in line, paid

My twelve dollars, smiled at him while he gucci’d at me and wrote his name complete



With the date of 4/5/00 and I left from a night I will never forget.  I read his work and

Had to admit his power in metaphor to be unparalleled, certainly not by me.  Hell, I

Can’t even ask the right damn question and he is the undisputed master of voice after all.



Did I mention he had laryngitis and had to end early?



© 2000 Barton J. Breen