Surely, Poets are Damned...

The Virgin King

by John Ashbery

They know so much more, and so much less,
"innocent details" and other. It was time to
put up or shut up. Claymation is so over,
the king thought. The watercolor virus
sidetracked tens.

Something tells me you'll be reading this on a train
stumbling through rural Georgia, wiping sleep
from your eyes as the conductor passes through
carrying a bun. We're moving today,
today on the couch.

Eighty-one years and you still got it Johnny...

I went to class today, like I do most days. New York School Poets, by far my favorite class of the semester. The professor is straight out of the East Coast, he wears his thick over sized, plastic rimmed glasses, sports a faux-hock most days and is fairly fashionable. He knows poetry, and I doubt greatly whether or not I would ever be able to get people to understand poetry as he can. He's terrible, critical and tough... and I can't get enough of him.

Most days, we start class discussing martinis... I imagine one day we start class having martinis. We discuss John Ashbery and together think - What the fuck? We discuss Frank O'Hara and his internal and external focus throughout his poetry. But mostly I just think - Thank God for O'Hara, because what a delight. We discuss James Schuyler and how he reminds us a little of O'Hara, but their goals are clearly different. And for my taste he is a little too romantic, but then he'll write something that hits me and makes me fall for him. "Each December! I always think I hate 'the overcommercialized/ event'/ and then bells ring, or tiny light bulbs wink above the entrance/ to Bonwit Teller or Katherine going on five wants to look at all/ the empty sample gift-wrapped boxes up Fifth Avenue in swank/ shops/ and how can I help falling in love?"

And I would say about 70% of my classmates are hipsters who think they own the English language. 15% have no idea what they have gotten themselves into, and the rest of us... we just love poetry. We all fall into the English class habit, curse, whatever you will call it (myself included) of precursing every statement with a "I'm going to say this, but I'm not exactly sure what I'm saying," or a "Maybe this isn't going to make any sense." Where is the confidance? Is is a lack of bravado or a lack of understanding... or are those the same thing? And every single day I fight myself over thinking that this overly critical view of poetry is complete bullshit and thinking that there is nothing else I'd rather be doing.

John Ashbery once wrote, "Eventually we would become known as the New York School of Poets, a term coined by the art dealer John Bernard Myers, though nobody told us about that at the time." I secretly hope that someday I get to be part of something like that, that I have some type of legacy in time and space that will be recognized with my contemporaries. Oh wishful thinking.

"More on Schuyler?" My incredible teacher begs of us, before whispering slightly, "Martini time?"

Silence... I wait in quiet anticipation for him to dismiss us...

"Maybe just one little thing."

DAMN YOU GIRL WHO SITS NEXT TO ME... damn you.

We discuss a little more, but it's clear that most of us have faded into the haze of the afternoon.

"Movie notes? Moments of zen? Political woes? ... Martinis? ... I'll just say I was going to go to Yia Yia's... I'll just head that way, if anyone wants to follow."

Someday I will go with my favorite professor and have a beer with my absurd and delightful class. But until then... I will enjoy my class of hipsters and apathetics.