I am, I am Superman
This makes me unreasonably happy.
About Me
- Paul
- Paul Guest is the author of four volumes of poetry and a memoir. His debut, The Resurrection of the Body and the Ruin of the World, was awarded the 2002 New Issues Poetry Prize. His second collection, Notes for My Body Double, was awarded the 2006 Prairie Schooner Book Prize. His third collection, My Index of Slightly Horrifying Knowledge, was published by Ecco Press/HarperCollins in 2008. His fourth collection, Because Everything Is Terrible, was published by Diode Editions. His poems have appeared in Harper's, The Paris Review, Poetry, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, and elsewhere. His memoir, One More Theory About Happiness, was published by Ecco in May 2010 and selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Program. The recipient of a 2011 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2007 Whiting Writers' Award, Guest lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.
6 comments:
Paul,
I love that song. And I love the kicking the watergun scene.
Thanks for posting this. I always feel happy when I'm at the store and a mother arrives with a child dressed in a cape. We need more superheroes.
Best,
Kelli R. A.
i just found your blog and have been enjoying it very much.
i would like to bring the 'somebody to go back in time with me' guy over to meet some of my friends.
happy to meet you,
julie
This made me smile, too.
Hey, Paul Guest.
That's the best thing I've seen in a long, long time.
Thanks for that.
--Stacey
Dear Paul,
I'm not sure if this will matter to you, but I am leaving your online poetry world; I will not return.
I want to say that you, Eduardo C., Amanda A., Ali S., and Josh H. are incredibly honest*, gifted, and talented poets. I very much admire what each person is doing in their work, each in their own highly individualistic, singular ways. I think we will meet one day in the far future, in person, in very happy, very creative times for ourselves and for American poetry. I hope you guys will keep up the good fight and continue with your creative projects, follow them through to fruition, so that one day it *will* be possible for our paths to intersect in life.
There are others who I find to be very gifted poets, who love poetry dearly, who do much for American poetry. I've mentioned a few names already, directly or by allusion (all the Constant Critics, Pavement Press, etc.). I hope one day I can meet these wonderful, honest* poets & people as well.
I am currently deep in writing my book of poems, and I already have the title for it. It will be done, and I hope to be able to share the poems that I have been working on for years with others in the future. Separately, I intend to write one single poem that will be 75+ pages, a living, breathing world of my imagination. It will likely take a lifetime for me to write this poem, if it is even possible for me to write this poem that has always lived vividly in my head & heart; I have to try; Poetry chose me, I did not choose this life at all.
My poet, novelist, short-story, & playwright friends also are working feverishly on their own creative projects. If I could make one wish tonight it is that everyone--writers who are strangers for now--can meet one day and have a big, fun Party.
My sole allegiance is to Creativity, Poetry, Humanity, Love, Friendship, Family, and making a small, positive difference in this hard, difficult world before, well, Death & Dust. I just wanted to affirm here, if it seems not obvious, that there is much pure goodness in this world, even if in bleak times such innocent goodness seems imperceptible, even nonexistent. Innocence, goodness, and kindness live not just in the bright child's eye; they can also live in the damaged, somber adult. Why? Because creativity, humanity, love, friends, family, genuine kindness live in one's heart, that is, POETRY lives in one's heart, and so such human conditions can never be shackled by the ruin of time. Let me be clear: I am *not* talking here about moral values which eventually tend to viciously censor, but that vein of humanistic values which essays to free the human spirit, to become what it is to become, in absolutely the Hegelian sense.
Finally, individuals committed to positive change in this world, who are neither solipsistic or often selfish, are not by default docile. They can also be ferocious, tough, aggressive, and ambitious, with a spirit made out of adamant. I've seen these people at work; they are my comrades and our mentors served as the first examples. I've also seen it happen right in front of me, positive, lasting change in the reality of the world...I had no idea that I had just witnessed a miracle. That's why I never give up, I always hope.
I wish you and your friends the very best, Paul, in life, in poetry. I'm sorry I've been anonymous, but it is for the best; if you want a better "picture" of me the poet and girl, you have what I've written in comments, Bill Knott's poetry, and most of all what Jordan Davis probably read of mine on Nov. 25, he was likely one of the few people who got to it in time. I hope that is enough.
Warmest Regards,
HD
*The Art of Poetry, Paris Review, Issue 21, Spring-Summer 1959
INTERVIEWER:
One last thing. Seventeen years ago you said, "No honest poet can ever feel quite sure of the permanent value of what he has written. He may have wasted his time and messed up his life for nothing." Do you feel the same way now, at seventy?
T.S. ELIOT:
There may be honest poets who do feel sure. I don't.
My friends and I are coming, not only in our material bodies, but in our literary projects. We will see you then, Paul and friends, in that future of infinite blue possibilities.
HD
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