I also found waking up, so to speak, was a journey with lots of twists and turns and missteps and surprises and moving forward. A few poems in the early 1990s seemed to forecast how it would be going for me. Here's the first.
Extra credit: a weird but weirdly compelling story by the great Irish writer Kevin Barry about Roethke's time in what was then called an insane asylum:
The Waking
I also found waking up, so to speak, was a journey with lots of twists and turns and missteps and surprises and moving forward. A few poems in the early 1990s seemed to forecast how it would be going for me. Here's the first.
Dead poets are poets who never write
Who obey shoulds and oughts
Who live to please others
Who value money over God
Who die without ever having lived
Death is their mark
Dead poets are remembered by the living.
Living poets are remembered by time
Dead poets never sing their song
Living poets nover stop singing it
The difference between the two is this:
One worships fear, the other life
To be a dead poet is hard
It requires being someone else
To be a living poet is easy
It only means being myself
One choice is hell, the other heaven
That is what is meant by free will
Extra credit: a weird but weirdly compelling story by the great Irish writer Kevin Barry about Roethke's time in what was then called an insane asylum:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/kevin-barry-short-story-roethke-in-the-bughouse-1.2308905