How I Became a Poet 

Originally posted February 26, 2009

Thanks in advance for reading. Extra points if you can tell who the Great Poet is.

The auditorium on the cold campus was full, but the Great Poet made us wait. When he finally made his entrance, he was wearing a black cape with a red lining, which he opened with a flourish. This was no forty-five minute slam, bam, slim-volume experience. Oh, no, this was something else.

The Great Poet read and read and read, with enthusiasm and abandon. He put on masks and danced . . . it seemed to go on for hours. With each offering, we became more trapped in the sticky web of what later on would become his great, manly mythology. Everyone had to pee!

Afterward was the obligatory cocktail party. At the time, I was amazed at how people fawned over the Great Poet. How they gripped their drinks tightly as they jostled to get near him, at the same time desperately trying not to appear too eager. His every word a pearl.

I was very young, but I stayed still and observed carefully as many animals came to the watering hole—the academic wannabes, the camp followers, the women.  And small voice in my head whispered, “Hell, I can write as well as THAT guy!” 

So I did.