Mingus at the Showplace : Digesting Experience

I heard an excerpt of this poem on my favorite morning radio show this morning, during a report about the Poetry Foundation. I howled with laughter at the first line, and delighted in the words as they flowed on.

 

Mingus at the Showplace 

BY WILLIAM MATTHEWS

I was miserable, of course, for I was seventeen,
and so I swung into action and wrote a poem,
and it was miserable, for that was how I thought
poetry worked: you digested experience and shat
literature.

 

Read the rest of the poem here.
And I am so thankful that in the digital age, radio hasn’t died, and neither has poetry. Happy Wednesday, friends.