“I didn’t care much for poetry…” (overheard in a salon)
This said by a woman praising Charlie,
a martyr by the sound of him, hearing—
and here the whirring of a hair dryer
swallows the details of ebullient praise—
the news—no doubt an anecdote about
her college English prof, whose lack of patience
with opinions gained from no experience
made for harsh marginal appraisal—
but this is overlaid and cynical conjecture.
Perhaps it had been Charlie, his love of limericks—
the bawdy kind—that led to this remark—
men will be men (her tone consumed by chatter)
refusing to reveal her acquiescence
to the winking side of prurient flirtation.
It took composer and college teacher Donald Wheelock forty years of writing formal poetry to reach the stage of submitting his favorites for publication. Formal poetry, once relegated to second fiddle in a career of writing chamber, vocal and orchestral music, has now demanded equal time. Indeed, it has taken over his life.