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« "Comrade Auden" in the TLS | Main | Four Amazing Quotes from Schopenhauer »

May 26, 2023

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Yup. Good stuff! Listen up, kids!

Dear David,

I've never found the kind of advice and encouragement you give here all in one place. It's taken me fifteen years to learn these things. Thank you your generosity.

Happy holidays.

Thank you Leslie, and you LO. I've had a veryu gratifying response to this post!

Superb speech, such wise words and spiritual encouragement for new and old poets. Thank you.

Wise & true.

For a horripilating moment there at the onset, I thought your "farewell address" was regarding your own ever-fecund scribal life or even your helming of The Best American Poetry site. Whew. The sage counsel you provide is a keeper for all of us, including those who love poetry and love writing about the best of it. They also serve who only sit and praise credibly. Add my hopefully credible praise of your welcome thoughts here, David.

Word!

>>Sometimes all you need is one magazine editor who believes in your work.

Wouldn't that be a treasure indeed.

This is all very good advice indeed. Makes me miss being in your classroom.

David,

As someone who's always found the "graduation" speech a dubious and difficult form,
I nevertheless find yours very appealing and useful for the grads.

Some further thoughts--


Making Sense

Don’t feel you need to make sense all the time.
- David Lehman, “The end of the semester: a farewell address”

Well, maybe not all the time– that’s
an impossible goal, anyway
(at least for poets). But isn’t sense

what we all hope and strive for
in this senseless world, at least
for the possibility of sense being

a stay against the confusion of life?
After all, if you can’t see, hear,
smell, taste, or touch something

where are you? Dead– or wishing
you were. Does that make sense?
So who will harvest sense if not our poets?

- Ken Lauter

Many thanks to all who commented.

Dear David,
I have taken two bytes/bites at this post! I have been fascinated and intrigued by you since a chance finding hooked me into your orbit. Our birth year is the same. Beyond that I presume no more. I have enjoyed our remote conversation punctuated by silences, reactions and occasional comments, mostly by me, all time sensitive (nuance effect)! You are a kind opinionated man with a welcoming persona. You are also a formidable writer, poet and sage (all three). What more can a person ask for in this world!

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"Lively and affectionate" Publishers Weekly

Radio

I left it
on when I
left the house
for the pleasure
of coming back
ten hours later
to the greatness
of Teddy Wilson
"After You've Gone"
on the piano
in the corner
of the bedroom
as I enter
in the dark


from New and Selected Poems by David Lehman

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