Selecting a Reader
First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.
—Ted Kooser
Poem 002
Did we read this already? It feels like we did.
ReplyDeleteThis is either a real writer or a liar. Only a real writer would prefer to lose a sale
Yes! I just checked and it was Poem 53 on the website and Poem 002 in the book I sent. Shucks, I will check to see how many poems cross over from website to book or if they are all the same in just a different order.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of inanimate objects, books, selecting their own reader is hilarious to me! It's like the book wanted her to pass the test, but when she actually had hand to hand contact with the contents of the poems, the poems rejected her instead of the other way around. The opposite of how I love to think that the books we read do CHOOSE US. This one discarded her...
So intimate upon rereading...❤️
ReplyDeleteI really like this poem too. I cannot believe I didn't make a more thoughtful comment.
DeleteI love how the narrator knows his audience and the person who will like/get his/her poems. The kind of person who needs a clean raincoat more than a book or poetry, and will clean the raincoat instead. I write for myself, and I rarely buy books. My reader would probably check my book out from the library, and make a pot of beans.
It says a lot about writing to sell books. Is that really who authors want to write for? Maybe? I can think of plenty of reasons to try to reach the masses besides monetary gains.
A greater appreciation of the simplicity of poetry is starting to change the way I read, the way I feel. In one thought this poem transforms you, makes you question the impact of the written word, of bookstores of old, and the thought that the writer and the reader both be intimately connected and never connected at all. OH, what power these poets hold that they know and know not of! It is why they continue to write ideas into the hearts of our minds.
ReplyDeleteToo bad I didn't remember this poem for the You pilot petardar.
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