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Page 24

Another workshop: "Specific exercises
will free the imagination...celebrate
the force of our language...explore
formal considerations, stylistic choices...
moments when the poem catches its own
voice." Well meant, but why are such
dull things written? We must have
a surplus of blank pages!

I celebrate the force of language (Hooray!),
which probably does not mean fuck, shit,
and great green gobs of greasy grimy
gopher guts, but why not? Now this poem
will catch its own voice by the tail
(ouch!).

It is too easy to mock such things,
too hard to compete in silliness with the notion
of a poet, about to write a poem,
having his imagination do sit-ups and push-ups,
then exploring (with magnifying glass? safari?)
formal considerations, choosing a style,
searching for a voice -- where AAAARE you,
little voice? -- too easy to mock, so
why do I do it? (Because they never invite me
to run a workshop?)

Workshop: you work, earn money, then you shop.
Work, shop, work, shop, work, shop....
That's not all of life: You also use/eat/wear/
consume what you buy. So a more complete course
in poetry might be a work-shop-eat. Better yet,
a work-shop-eat-watch-tee-vee-fuck-sleep.
Would you like to attend my new poetry
workshopeatwatchteeveefucksleep?

(My spell checker says to hell with it.)

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