Boss,

Whilst dining from the great green dumpster behind the local Bob’s Big Boy restaurant, I’m letting my mind drift away to more epicurean locales; someplace, where they serve fine wine, wilt-leaf salads and delicately grilled frogs’ legs. After all, a ticky-dot-cat is not without foodie-dreams.

The thought of frogs’ legs, does bring certain other images to mind. Images, perhaps, that might be of some use to those who toil—or at least dream of toiling—in the simmering pot of water known as, “poetry.”

It dawns on me: writers of prose, essays, journalistic endeavors, novels, even the creators of instructions adorning the back of toilet paper dispensers, have a distinct advantage in the pursuit of their craft. These writers have an audience attuned with; at least, semi-capable of grasping the meaning of, and possibly willing to pick up and read their works.

   The writers of poetry, or “poetry,” realize  little of this advantage; having instead, to deal with “the look of fear and loathing.”

Writers of poesy have only their own resources, dredged from deep within their, self-wells of knowledge and imagination; resources developed through long, difficult self-evaluation and application. The writer of verse would be a shallow fool, indeed, to rely upon non-poetry friends (albeit, the real people of the world) or relatives for critique; that critique menu has but one, Saccharin saturated sauce. “Poetry” friends, especially of the Poetry Society ilk, present an even less appetizing outcome. And beseeching one’s teacher or instructor, holds little other hope—unless that teacher be true on the student’s behalf, and the writer soliciting advice is actually searching for some sort of illusive, attempt at, truth.

This leaves a writer of elevated words and meanings, much like the aforementioned croaker, swimming in a pot of slowly heated water. If the frog has the initiative and foresight to leap free in search of horizons,

practice, improvement and severe self-analysis—there will be an audience awaiting (hopefully, without dinner on their minds). The unfortunate frog who is satisfied, gazing at the cylindrical interior stainless-steel walls of their confinement, writing for themselves, not expanding their vision, eschewing introspective interrogation, will most certainly end up self-satisfied—
yet, none-the-less, an entrée.

…More on this later. Right now, moving on to another half-eaten burger,

Max tdc