I'm sure I read this poem five years ago when I was here,
but I'll read it again.
I was a graduate student bum around the writers workshop
at the University of Iowa for about three years
sometime back.
And after a while, I thought after I'd been there
three years, I thought I was receiving clear
if subtle signals that I should seek what was euphemistically
called gainful employment elsewhere.
And I wrote a poem which I thought articulated then
my own position in this regard, and also
the positions of graduate students and seniors
in any year.
And it's called "THe Delicate Bird
Who Was Flying Up Our Asses."
The delicate bird of flies off your asses
was flying up mine also with no express invitation.
The bird who likes the lean and hungry is making me sweat.
I have delusions that I need a job
and I will waste away unless I eat the bird
and that my family will remember me only as a poor provider.
That bird means to straighten me out.
The bird in favor of fathers and sons
is cropping up insidiously.
Once I could be lazy, now he turns up everywhere I sit.
Each day I have a feeling of the bird higher within me.
Once I declined burdens now I jumped
to be responsible for ones I haven't yet.
I can tell that bird means to stay with me forever.
Hire me, I have another mouth to feed.
[LAUGHTER]