I want to make a turn from it, putting aside
another one like that, come to think of it.
And I want to read--
well, one thing that happened last night in the class--
one of the good things I thought was happening
is whatever position we were taking,
we were willing to exaggerate it in order
to find out really where we were, what the issues were.
I remember making one remark about someone
said, don't you feel, something about how is it to be a poet
or are you inhibited by society and so on.
I told about teaching at a very conservative college
and someone saying to me, how can
you do that, don't you feel a lot of pressure.
And I said, I don't feel any pressure
because I'm already square.
This kind of feeling.
So I was purposefully exaggerating that a bit.
But I want to read a really, well, an extreme poem that went
over very well in that town.
And then, after I wrote it, I wanted to send it to a place--
I like to try to challenge editors
by sending something that may seem sort of strange
for their periodical.
And this was published in a kind of an unusual place for such
a conservative poem.
It's called "From the Gradual Grass".
"Imagine a voice calling.
There is a voice now calling.
Or maybe a blasting cry.
Walls are falling as it makes walls be falling.
Then, from the gradual grass, too
serious to be only noise, whatever it is grass
makes, making words, a voice.
Destruction is ending.
This voice is promising quiet.
Silence by lasting forever grows to sound endlessly
from the world's end, promising calling.
Imagine.
That voice is calling."