the poet who was too nervous to read his own poetry had hair as big as houston hair as big as al sharpton hair that was really quite big and beat the poet who was too nervous to read his own poetry finally got on with it read one he described how miserable we humans are how messed up we are how wrong we are the poet who was too nervous to read his own poetry stopped from time to time in the middle of a line to tell us who first said what so we'd not miss references so we'd know that he knows lots about other writers the poet who was too nervous to read his own poetry read a five page poem really quite quickly there being but a few words at the top of each page then rather than read more he asked for questions coming forward to where nine of us could smell vodka why someone asked do you lay things on the page the way you do because he said after reflection about as long as a page of words i want to long pause interrupted by are there any less hostile questions we thought hard someone raised a hand how long did you work on that poem pause twenty months oh we thought coincidence that's about as long as we've been here David Ritchie, Portland, Oregon------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html