Good Coffee

The other night I was hanging out with a friend having the finest cup of Espresso in the City of Chicago when I realized that I think the problem with poetry is the lack of realness. I look around Chicago at the poets who are 'good' and I see allot of coddled grad student types who have never had to struggle or to challenge. Many have money, many are on the academic gravy train, and many are dabblers. It is a little sickening. I like poets who have LIVED. Not poets who have just thought. I was with someone the other day and they said ' well you dont have an mfa' sure that is true but I did spend three years working in Bolivia with inmates in the worst jail in south america, I have worked in the business world around the world, I am better read than most ' mfaers' I speak four languages-- so this is what I mean if all ' serious' poetry is going to come out of people with the same experience, coddled life, mfa, then what's the point? Even the 'minority' writers are part of the same thing. I am an intellectual but I am not an academic and I piss on all gentlemen and ladies. Poets try to ' not sell out' but the fact is that by being an academic you are as much of a sell out as someone who works in business or works as a stripper as well.

It is amazing because in Chicago we have so many poets who have come on the scene who have nothing
to do with the city as it is. Now I lived away from Chicago for 10 years and do not pretend to know all but I do know my Italian Beefs from my Philly Cheesesteaks.