THE BIOGRAPHIES OF POETS
You love reading them, but not the beginnings.
The beginnings bore you. All those names,
The paternal and maternal grandparents,
The births of their fathers and mothers,
Their courtship and their professions,
All must be gotten through before finally
On, say, page 30, the poet is born.
Then you must make it through childhood,
A death or a teacher that might become
Significant later or might not, summers
Spent at a lake or on an uncle’s farm,
The first predictable dawning in them of a love
Of language, all this must be endured before
On, say, page 90, the first poem is written.
And it's bad, the poem. Now one must get through
The apprentice years, must read the letters
And journal entries in which the poet doubted
Their talent, must change majors with them,
Accompany them while they disappoint parents,
And all in vain. You alone seem to know that
They will go on to write great poems.
After all, this is why you’re reading their biography
In the first place. You flip ahead to catch a glimpse
Of the great stanzas adrift in all that prose
About their affairs and alcoholism and prizes
And late happiness. And then you return
To the place where you were to see if you can
Figure out how in hell they wrote them.
You love reading them, but not the beginnings.
The beginnings bore you. All those names,
The paternal and maternal grandparents,
The births of their fathers and mothers,
Their courtship and their professions,
All must be gotten through before finally
On, say, page 30, the poet is born.
Then you must make it through childhood,
A death or a teacher that might become
Significant later or might not, summers
Spent at a lake or on an uncle’s farm,
The first predictable dawning in them of a love
Of language, all this must be endured before
On, say, page 90, the first poem is written.
And it's bad, the poem. Now one must get through
The apprentice years, must read the letters
And journal entries in which the poet doubted
Their talent, must change majors with them,
Accompany them while they disappoint parents,
And all in vain. You alone seem to know that
They will go on to write great poems.
After all, this is why you’re reading their biography
In the first place. You flip ahead to catch a glimpse
Of the great stanzas adrift in all that prose
About their affairs and alcoholism and prizes
And late happiness. And then you return
To the place where you were to see if you can
Figure out how in hell they wrote them.