WEBVTT

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First of all, I'm going to
start with the very first poem,

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because it seems to me that--

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it's a poem that though it
looks like it is dissing prose

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writers, it's actually an
acknowledgment of the hardship

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that goes into every writing.

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And also because this poem was
inspired by a young poet who

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lived here in Tucson.

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His name was Morgan Schuldt.

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And he had actually
been my student

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at the University of Virginia.

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Then he came here to the
University of Arizona,

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got his MFA here, started
a magazine of prose poems.

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That featured
exclusively prose poems.

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And then wrote to me
and said, would you

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contribute to the magazine?

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And I said to him, I'm not sure
I believe in the prose poem.

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Because this was
our relationship.

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I would challenge him and he
would come back and we would--

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And so, and of course, I
sent him the prose poem.

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"Prose in a Small Space."

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It's supposed to be prose if
it runs on and on, isn't it?

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All those words, too many
to fall into rank and file,

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stumbling bare ass drunk onto
the field reporting for duty,

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yes, sir, spilling out as
shamelessly as the glut

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from a mega billion
dollar chemical facility,

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just the amount of
glittering effluvium

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it takes to transport
a little girl

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across a room, beige carpet
thick under her oxfords,

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curtains blousy with spring--

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is that the scent of
daffodils drifting in?

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Daffodils don't smell
but prose doesn't care.

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Prose likes to hear
itself talk, prose

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is development in
denouement, anticipation

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hovering near the canopies,
lust rampant in the antipasto--

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for example a silver
fork fingered sadly

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as the heroine crumples
a linen napkin in her lap

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to keep from crying out at
the sight of Lord Campion's

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regal brow inclined tenderly
toward the wealthy young

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widow--

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prose applauds such
syntactical dalliances.

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Then is it poetry
if it's confined?

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Trembling along its
axis, a flagpole

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come alive in high wind,
flapping its radiant sleeve

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for attention--
over here, it's me.

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While the white spaces--

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air, field, early morning
silence before the school bell,

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shape themselves around
that one bright seizure.

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And if that's so what do we
have here, a dream or three

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paragraphs?

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We have white space too--

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is this music?

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As for all the words left
out, banging at the gates,

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we can let them
in, but where would

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we go with our orders,
our stuttering pride.

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That is for Morgan.

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[APPLAUSE]

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