Dear Charles

You asked me today whether I had written any poems lately
And I was overjoyed that somebody had taken an interest
You especially
And you followed up with a question
Concerning publication beyond these humble pages
And I gave the same answer I give
When we talk about bookings for our band
That’s marketing
I’m in research and development
Which is a snobbish and unacceptable answer
But I can speak to you artist to artist
And ask whether you think I’m right
That a certain snobbery obtains in the artist’s calling
Especially one of long standing
And I’m reminded of a conversation
Between a member of the nobility
And a great artist of our own time
Who painted a great mural in the great house
Asked by the patron how he had achieved a particular effect he replied
Years of practice

And our conversation continued
And we discussed the troubled relationship
Of the artist and the public
And I claimed that the artist’s responsibilities include
Educating the public
And I went on rather gratuitously
That the public must desire such education
Gratuitous because as a schoolteacher I know
That the desire to learn is the sole definition of student
And you did not say
Though you could have
That the artist you admire perhaps more than any other
Held certifiable membership in the avant garde
And although no superstar of pop
Sold many records
Presumably intelligible to the masses

Sales have never stimulated my interest
Perhaps because I have made so few
Despite or because of my infrequent and desultory attempts
I have an unconsciousness moral objection to persuasion
People do what they want
As they should do
I can’t compel them to enjoy my work
I can’t even explain to them my work
I could never teach creative writing
Though I have been called upon to do so once or twice
And I teach essay-writing all day long
First
Ours is not a neoclassical age
Ours is an age that favors innovation
Which the neoclassicist Dryden called
The blow of fate
And the contemporary artist faces the impossible task
Of reinventing the wheel and everything else
And secondly
Which amounts to much the same
Ours is an individualistic age
And expects art to be individual expression
Even in the collaborative mass media
And how do you teach the expression of oneself

So is this a poem
Are any of them
I say yes
It is a thing made out of language
A verbal artifact
With some attention paid
Not only to the semantic content
But more significantly
To the superfluous
That is useless
As Wilde said
Elements
Especially the phonological ones
Especially the rhythmic ones
And I am a rather elderly man
Set in his ways
Who uses no punctuation

On a different plane we are collaborators you and I
And collaborative art is more rewarding
Even though it is easier
Than hacking compulsively away
I was well into adulthood before I learned
That our culture is an industrial product
But that knowledge came as no disillusionment
Since I knew that the art I loved best
Had arisen in industrial circumstances
But I also knew that I had lived through a renaissance
That began on the Ed Sullivan Show
And ended at a racetrack outside San Francisco
And in the jungles of Viet Nam
And with a second-rate burglary
And the throngs in the 27 Club
And yet artists remain true to their imaginations
And they create art
Whether under noble patronage
Or in search of the grail of a record contract
Or here in the early early morning
Hacking away
In lonely compulsive bliss