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
“But I guess now you’re here we can make an accommodation and try, at last, to begin. As I was saying,” the meticulously hungover individual who is apparently the poet Don Hillary pursues, “I don’t give one donkey fuck what you do while you’re here. I honest to god do not. This is not a contest and I do not give out prizes. And the first of you knuckleheads gets that through his or her skull will be the lucky recipient of absolutely nothing.” Don Hillary pauses. He has to acknowledge someone. “Yes? You already have something you need to tell me?”
It’s Loudermilk. “Hi, everyone. I’m Loudermilk.”
There comes a deafening stillness.
“Dear Class,” Don Hillary finally hisses, “please meet Loudermilk. He’s new here.”
No one says a donkey-fucking thing.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” the remarkably expressive Hillary continues. “How rude of me. And this is everyone else. Loudermilk, please meet every fucking body in your brand-new class.” Harry can tell that Hillary is about to ram it home. “Here, by the way, is every fucking person who is going to make your life a goddamn living hell for the next four months, did I mention that? But don’t worry, they’re all going to be your bestest little cuddle buddies, too. That’s the irony of this province and its charming customs. Remember how you used to write to get away from it all? To be alone and at peace? Well, you can forget about that now, because it’s time to start writing by committee. Every time you sit down to write any bloody effing thing, these idiots are going to be up there in your brain all over it, offering anodyne suggestions. See Kari over here? I had her in this same impotent time-suck last semester. She doesn’t like pigeons. God forbid you might put a pigeon in your poem because she will dig that thing out like a terrier. I’m not even kidding you. And, by the way, I’m Don. Though you must already know that. And, by the way, I don’t care about you. You are not my responsibility. Only thing I have the time or, I should add, inclination to care about is the work. Period. End of story.” Hillary’s chair creaks.
This is for starters.
In class number two, Loudermilk’s first poem, aka Harry’s first poem, aka “Writing Teacher,” is up for discussion.
On the tape, the students ponder “Writing Teacher.” They labor to describe it. They say it seems at once familiar to them and unlike anything they’ve read. They admit that they don’t know what it means but that they like it. It feels mysterious. They think it’s a poem about America, recent imperial foibles. They treasure the part about the “cool, dim Easter / Basket,” whatever that is.
Harry smiles at that.