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Something Told To Me At College, My Freshman Year, October, 1976
During my callow freshman year, this was told to me:
"Just as one cannot raise sturdy architecture
without preparation---apprenticeship and lecture---
so one cannot raise up viable poetry
without knowledge of past literature.
To defy this is like spreading manure
without skill or artistry."
This is what was told to me
by a great scholar, academically
accimplished; but its accuracy
I leave to the reader's determination:
it was, after all, toward a freshman directed,
and perhaps not what the reader may have expected.
Starward
