I write both in free verse and metrical-- and in meter.
And I try to keep up writing in them both because I can do--
I would say I can do things in the one
that I can't do in the other.
Next poem I'm going to read is considerably different.
This is the one that was printed on that little program
that probably some of you have that Lois gives out free
at the poetry--
in the Poetry Center, poetry room.
And this is called, "Skateboard."
This was written of a skateboarder on the street
very close to where I live.
Haight Street, in the, I guess, still quite famous--
Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco.
And he was a very flashy skateboarder.
He was the height of fashion in a way.
And this is about 1981.
Well, there had been plenty of skateboards before him,
but he was aware that he was doing it a very
flashy and successful way.
And I call him towhead because he had hair dyed yellow.
God knows what color it really was.
Well, you could see it was darker at the roots,
as I say in the poem.
"Skateboard."
"Towhead on his skateboard threads through a crowd of feet
and faces, delayed to a slow stupidity.
Darts, doubles, twists, you notice how nimbly the body
itself has learned to assess the relation
between the board, pedestrians, and immediate sidewalk.
Emblem, emblem of fashion.
Wearing dirty white in dishevelment, as delicate
as the falling draperies on a dandyish Renaissance saint.
Chain around his waist.
One hand gloved.
Hair dyed to show it is dyed.
Pale flame spiking from fuel.
Towhead, on skateboard, perfecting himself,
emblem extraordinary of the ordinary.
In the sexless face, eyes innocent of feeling,
therefore, suggest the spirit."
I've been over in this country more than half my life,
but I'm still very susceptible to the exotic Americana.
And I thought-- when I saw him I thought,
how wonderfully American?
How wonderfully Californian?
And I showed this poem to a friend of mine who
owns a store on Haight Street.
And one day this friend of mine said, oh, you know that kid
you wrote that poem about?
The skateboarder?
And I said, yes.
He said, well, he came in here the other day
to ask me for a job.
He's English you know?
[LAUGHTER]
This is so much for my romanticism.
When you're a romantic, you can feed it anywhere.