Posts
| July 12 2007: John Yamrus | |
John Yamrus has been a fixture in American poetry for four decades. Since 1970 he has published 2 novels, 16 volumes of poetry and more than 900 poems in magazines around the world. Selections of his poetry have been translated into several languages including Spanish, Swedish, Italian, Japanese and (most recently) Romanian.
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featured poem did i ever tell you did i ever tell you about the time Linda said i was good, but that i’d never be Bukowski? Linda was a poet. one of Bukowski’s girlfriends in the ‘70s. for a while she edited and published a pretty decent little magazine. she wrote to me saying that she loved my poems... actually, it’s been so long now i really don’t remember if she loved them or liked them, but it doesn’t matter... she said that i was good, but i would never be great... because i wasn’t mad. Bukowski (she said) was mad... and he was great. i wrote back saying that she was right... Bukowski IS mad and Bukowski IS great, but if one of the qualifications for being mad and being great was having to put up with the likes of her, then i’d be more than happy to settle for what i am and what i’m going to be. that was 30 years ago, and do you know what? i’m still not mad and i’m still not great... but, every now and then, when the moon’s just right i’m not half bad. by John Yamrus |
