littlestar

so i've decided against taking an art class next semester (with the help of very caring and concerned friends). instead, i will be taking two writing classes, perhaps in pursuit of a creative writing minor. this frees me up to relax and recuperate, which usually involves reading books. :D

i've been trying to read up on some poetry, since i wasn't really exposed to it until my writing class this last semester. Perrine's Sound and Sense has been good for that. my friend lish also gave me two books that she demands i read immediately, starting with Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.

now a poem from this book, which i found very funny:

We Who are Your Closest Friends

We who are
your closest friends
feel the time
has come to tell you
that every Thursday
we have been meeting,
as a group,
to devise ways
to keep you
in perpetual uncertainty
frustration
discontent and
torture
by neither loving you
as much as you want
nor cutting you adrift.
Your analyst is
in on it,
plus your boyfriend
and your ex-husband;
and we have pledged
to disappoint you
as long as you need.
In announcing our
association
we realize we have
placed in your hands
a possible antidote
against uncertainty
indeed against ourselves.
But since our Thursday nights
have brought us
to a community
of purpose
rare in itself
with you as
the natural center,
we feel hopeful you
will continue to make unreasonable
demands for affection
if not as a consequence
of your disastrous personality
then for the good of the collective.

Phillip Lopate

Anne Lamott says she reads in this in her classes and gets the following reaction:

"They stare at me like the cast of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Only about three of them think this poem is funny, or even a good example of someone taking his own paranoia and shaping it into something artistic and true. A few people look haunted. The ones who most want to be published just think I'm an extremely angry person. Some of them look emotionally broken, some look at me with actual disgust, as if I am standing there naken under fluorescent lights."

which are you? :D