Chapters (60)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Personae
- I: Early Days
- One. Control
- Two. Doubt
- Three. Fate
- Four. Same
- Five. Fine Arts
- Six. In Loco Parentis
- Seven. Settling
- Eight. Neighbors
- Nine. Prospects
- Ten. The Lucky
- Eleven. Instruction
- Twelve. Same
- Thirteen. This Is a Pipe
- Fourteen. This Is Not a Pipe
- Fifteen. The Reason
- Sixteen. That Person
- Seventeen. Predictably
- II: Writing Teacher
- Eighteen. Early Poems
- Nineteen. Motivation
- Twenty. Allegory
- Twenty-One. Grief
- Twenty-Two. A Portrait
- Twenty-Three. Veils
- Twenty-Four. Soft Power
- Twenty-Five. Lists
- Twenty-Six. A Break
- Twenty-Seven. Elsewhere
- Twenty-Eight. Custom
- Twenty-Nine. Parity
- Thirty. Fortune
- III: Volta
- Thirty-One. Images
- Thirty-Two. A Very Interesting Young Man
- Thirty-Three. Letters
- Thirty-Four. We Prefer to See Ourselves Living
- Thirty-Five. Love
- Thirty-Six. The Iceberg
- IV: Your Best Reader
- Thirty-Seven. A Novelist
- Thirty-Eight. In Advance of the Broken Arm
- Thirty-Nine. Their Penultimate Encounter
- Forty. Détente
- Forty-One. Worlds
- Forty-Two. Recognition
- Forty-Three. Persistence
- Forty-Four. And Then
- Forty-Five. Mingling
- Forty-Six. You
- Forty-Seven. Persona
- Forty-Eight. Est et Non
- Forty-Nine. The Author
- Epilogue
- Afterword: The Libertine
- Acknowledgments
- About the Authors
It is only later, when she is walking down the hill again, form in hand, that she recalls the man who does not willingly distribute donkey fucks. Could one imagine that his pronouncements herald a really excellent form of meritocracy, somehow? That his is, paradoxically, the most sublime of pedagogical metrics—since incomprehensible, profane, and therefore absolute?
Clare thinks that this has got to be a poetry teacher, and perhaps this is the look and sound and style of today’s poetry.
She also puzzles over the fact that certain kinds of information are produced ex nihilo, just by way of the presence of more than one person in a given room.
Twelve. Same
Twelve
Same
“You remember,” Loudermilk yells, apropos of nothing, as the screen door slams shut behind him, “when we were at the mall?”
Harry jerks up in his chair. It is 5:00 p.m.
Loudermilk is back from class—from workshop, Harry specifies.
Loudermilk strides into the main room and wants to know if Harry remembers the girl.
Harry has been napping. He has lately returned from the university library stacks with a selection of award-winning poetry titles from the past year. These are sitting in a plastic bag near the front door. Harry mutters something about nice to see you, too.
“The one in high school, right? Lizzie? Likes to get into cars with strange men?”
“Speak for yourself.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” says Loudermilk. He quotes Marisa Tomei in her Oscar-winning turn as Mona Lisa Vito: “You blend.” He rolls the papers he’s carrying into a cone and brings it to his mouth like a megaphone. He intones, “Her dad is my instructor!”
Harry is sitting in one of the beer-cozy camping chairs, staring out of one of the back windows of their hut into the overgrown backyard. He squints, transforming the view into blobs of brown and green. “That’s nice,” he says.
“It’s annoying, is what it is. I didn’t realize who we were dealing with. That’s the kind of deception that really gets to me. Anyways, this is what you have to read.” He drops a few pages onto Harry’s lap. “Sample poems. Fresh from the recycling bin. At some point T. A. Loudermilk must make his own contribution.”
“I’ll try to write something!”
“Yes, Harrison, as in, a poem!”
Harry sighs.
“Jesus, you goddamn cum-dumpster, stop pretending you’re not totally psyched to do this. And, uh, have it ready for, like, this Wednesday.” Loudermilk pauses. “Please.”
Harry begins flipping through the printouts. He wants to know if he’s supposed to write crap like this.
“It’s supposed to be really good, is what it’s supposed to be! Like everything you write! How you think we got in here?”
Harry claims not to be in possession of this info.
“No, dude, you will admit that you know. Own thy poetry. By the way, have you even left the house today?”