March 13, 1980: Poetic Apprentice

Published in the Journal, Poetic Apprentice

March 13 4:30 p.m.: Trying to figure out what’s happening to me the last couple of days. Last night, after getting up at 10 a.m., I was watching a program on Einstein and halfway through became age-old tired and kept closing my eyes although I didn’t want to miss any of the program. So when it was over at 9 p.m. I decided to go to sleep and get up at 5 a.m. which would be a nice habit to get into instead of staying up until 4 a.m. and getting up at 10. I went right to sleep but Alex woke me up at 11:30 because I’d forgotten to bring the catbox in. I was wide awake and after a few minutes of trying to get back to sleep, decided it was better to get up and get something done. Stayed up until 4. a.m. but didn’t really accomplish much. Went to sleep and woke up at 9:30 and felt kind of odd. Decided to take a shower and stayed under the hot water a long time. When I got out I felt like I’d gone to sleep and woken up in Dreamland. Went to type over the poem I was going to discuss in the colloquium but in this dream state I was afraid it would be embarrassing to read a poem about sex, embarrassment about sex, and a wet dream in Stanley’s class, which is very impersonal and rather cold. Plus, looking over the corrections Ginsberg made on the text, I realized I liked the original version better for the most part, especially the sound. Unsure whether or not this is because a poem is a living thing. My feeling of listlessness and disorientation continued. I decided to skip class and went instead to the printing shop and bought the bookbinder’s press they had in the window for $100.00. Then went to the library where I found an Alan Stivell tape that I put in my tape deck and without planning to I drove past my house and kept driving into the canyon and up into the mountains which were so beautiful. I felt as though the music was driving me, as if I were hurtling up against the wind, sailing. Street signs suddenly sounded like poems — “When flood waters rise head higher.” The whole day became a poem which went something like this.