Grex Writing Conference

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Grex Writing Item 47: The young md. Yes, md was young once.
Entered by md on Sat Dec 5 15:21:42 UTC 1992:

My fluid, flint and wick all fail at once,
And unlit cigarettes remain unlit
For I have brought no matches.  Clumsy dunce!
My lighter makes a limpid plash as it
Makes contact with the startled innocent lake.
My Lesbia says Yes to love's blunt question,
But no such answer can Catullus make,
Desire contending now with indigestion.
Arcadian dyspepsia is still
Dyspepsia, by Pan!  At Auto's helm,
The heartburn stays and gnaws my bowels until
We reach her house.  O summer evening elm!
Your buckled sidewalk jams against my toe.
I hear you laughing as I gnash below.

I wrote that when I was eighteen, for an assignment in an English
class in college.  It was an American Poetry class, and the instructor
wanted to show us all how difficult it is to write a sonnet.  I think
he was hoping to instill a little "judge not lest ye be judged" in us,
before exposing us to some of the dreck composed in the 19th century.

Anyway, I later submitted it to the college literary magazine and they
published it, along with a couple of other poems of mine.  After the
magazine had been out for about a week, a guy from down the hall in
my dormitory stopped me in the middle of the college commons in the
dead of winter (it was thirty below), and recited me poem to me
word for word and told me how terriffic he thought it was.  It was
one of the greatest ego rushes I'd ever had in my life.  

I read it now, and can still feel a little rueful affection for it.
I certainly had a way with rhythm - "Arcadian dyspepsia is still"
is a beautifully musical pentameter line, despite the no-no of
the end-to-end vowels between "dyspepsia" and "is."

6 responses total.

#1 of 6 by chelsea on Sat Dec 5 23:51:06 1992:

It sounds more than a little, er, Freudian to me. ;-)  But mostly it's
just straight-out classy.  

Just today I was thinking how I really should check out Story on M-net
to see if Michael has entered anything recently.  Such a pleasure to
see it here.

#2 of 6 by keats on Sun Dec 6 17:47:26 1992:

michael, you've tempted me to post some of my own college workshop stuff...

#3 of 6 by davel on Sun Dec 6 20:33:40 1992:

Well, keats, I did & got one "I don't quite get this" type response.  :)>

#4 of 6 by keats on Mon Dec 7 00:39:29 1992:

(wasn't me...maybe you oughta make chelsea bake you some chocolate chip
cookies as a palliative for her comment...she's making a few dozen for
grexers, anyway...)

#5 of 6 by davel on Mon Dec 7 00:46:38 1992:

Why?  Her question was reasonable, as I remember.  Just a warning that not
*all* youthful efforts are worth posting.

#6 of 6 by keats on Mon Dec 7 05:09:23 1992:

hey, look, it's a shot at cookies...

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