yeah the lunch table comment was clearly a joking rib. I obviously don’t like the guy but the comment clearly isn’t a serious point.
Guise, I think it’s time I came clean. In middle school I once wrote…
Ducks have feathers
Feathers get plucked
Have a great summer
Hope you get fucked
In the yearbook of a girl I had a crush on. I got suspended.
Thank you for listening and please respect the burgeoning poet in your life.
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@aannddyy00 this is art
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It gets worse. My parents then told me, after stifling laughter in the principal’s office, “You know, you would have gotten away with it if you didn’t sign your name after it.”
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I love hearing about what Eric thinks modern society is like, because it’s always fascinating to see how many definitive assumptions he can make based off of an isolated piece of information. Have you ever enjoyed a poem? You must (1) have hipstery tastes in music, (2) not play sports, (3) have a poetry book you scribble in, and (4) hide in the corner at parties. You physically cannot enjoy a poem without also doing those four things.
I went to a massive public high school and we were relatively clique-less. People had their friend groups but it wasn’t like “you like to do x so you hang out with y”. I lettered in rugby for three years, and I got into poetry junior year because my English teacher thought it would help my writing (it did!). One of my friends who I studied with in that group (and who went on to become a published author and creative writing professor) played varsity basketball for three years. Most of the athletes at my school were involved in the arts in some way, because most of the people at my school were involved in the arts in some way. The arts are great! Everyone should be involved in them. Creating things and enjoying the things that other people create is fun and life-affirming.
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i like poetry
i also like playing golf
this is a haiku
not all poetry is good
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My high school and county had different priorities, the school board was focused on the “three R’s;” reading, 'rithmetic, and football. (Collectively, we weren’t got at any of them).
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haha what a beautiful fantasy (that most certainly didn’t exist).
Massive difference between happening to enjoy a poem and being a poetry geek. I don’t think I’ve ever even talked to another human being about poetry(outside of class) in almost 50 years of life. I don’t think more than 0.5% of people are “into” poetry so yeah, it’s probably safe to make assumptions about the type of person that is. It’s most likely the guy who puts his hair into a bun to go down to the local co-op to buy some kombucha as a refreshment before seeing a local accoustic artist at a coffee shop full of people who haven’t recently showered and who have multiple buttons pinned on to their thrift shore jean jacket.
You can talk about the club sport you played as some sort of anecdotal evidence that I’m wrong but I would be very surprised if there are many undercover poetry fans out there. I like the arts, I like movies, books, TV, and music, but poetry? C’mon now, I don’t have “The Manifesto” on my bookshelf.
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You ever read any Bukowski?
More bad parenting over the weekend — my wife and I took our kids to the Maryland Zoo, which is located within the boundaries of Baltimore City. We weren’t alone as lots of other bad parents took their families to the zoo on a spring-like January weekend.
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My mother-in-law got us season passes to the Maryland Zoo for Christmas. Can you imagine a more heartless gift for grand-kids? Now I’m going to have to take them inside Baltimore County.
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Did the passes come with a bulletproof vest?
I’m heading out to Baltimore tomorrow. Pray for me. /s
Always loved this poem by Richard Hugo, a poet of some renown (only in the worth of poetry and, apparently, nerds) who spent most of his life teaching at the University of Montana. He wrote it about his favorite bar, The Milltown Union Bar, just outside Missoula.
You could love here, not the lovely goat
in plexiglass nor the elk shot
in the middle of a joke, but honest drunks,
crossed swords above the bar, three men hung
in the bad painting, others riding off
on the phony green horizon. The owner,
fresh from orphan wars, loves too
but bad as you. He keeps improving things
but can’t cut the bodies down.
You need never leave. Money or a story
brings you booze. The elk is grinning
and the goat says go so tenderly
you hear him through the glass. If you weep
deer heads weep. Sing and the orphanage
announces plans for your release. A train
goes by and ditches jump. You were nothing
going in and now you kiss your hand.
When mills shut down, when the worst drunk
says finally I’m stone, three men still hang
painted badly from a leafless tree, you
one of them, brains tied behind you back,
swinging for your sin. Or you swing
with goats and elk. Doors of orphanages
finally swing out and here you open in.
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Doesn’t rhyme. Bad poem.
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Why don’t you go put your hair up into a man bun and drink some artisanal coffee KVV
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I’m sure it’s revered by the “Missoulans” like Anne Helen Petersen, who do everything possible to turn any Montana town into Williamsburg-West. I love Montana, don’t know how anyone in their right mind could leave a peaceful paradise to go to Baltimore but to each his own. Have you ever considered moving back?
To everyone else on The Refuge, are you honestly trying to tell me that poetry is a thing that normal people consume independently? Is there a popular website for new poems? Are people outside of Brooklyn buying poetry? Can more than 27 people in the entire United States name a contemporary poet? Have you ever been on the links with a few buddies discussing your favorite T.S. Elliot line? You people will argue anything I say, even when it’s completely irrational to do so.
Because that’s what this conversation stemmed from. I was simply responding to someone who talked about a kid being a big Edgar Allen Poe fan, which is just laughable to me. Maybe there are 3 of them.
Art takes from Andy, a series.
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One day, I hope we can argue with something you say that isn’t completely irrational.
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