Alan Friedman
THE ANATOMY OF A POET
Coarse? Well, maybe I am. One of the magazines called
me a "coarse old lady poet." I won't argue the point. Naturally,
I got coarser as I grew older, like most of you. I don't mean only
my indecent turn of mind, which comes automatically with age
j
I
mean those mannerisms which even lady poets develop and which
never get into print: I can rarely eat without getting food all over
my mouth. And these days whenever I eat anything I really enjoy,
I make a sharp whining involuntary noise under my chewing-I can
hardly control it. And the smell of my feet, which has gotten
stronger with age like cheese-well, would it really shock you if I
said I like it? I think not, at least not
if
you've reached my age.
But just in case, I want to warn you: even if you happen to have
read some of my verse and thought the sweet-and-sour of it to your
taste, prose is another matter. For I think you'll agree with me
that it isn't life itself which
is
coarse, but the way in which it's
experienced. And though I've always written about my life in
poetry,
I experienced it, so to speak, in prose-physically and
corruptly.
For example, the first time I wrote a poem I was very troubled
by the problem of rhyme (I was eight years old) and I was scratching
my behind all during the composition. I remember it distinctly
because my Uncle Lemmie (dead a long while now. The only thing
I remember about him
is
that he was always pushing a garden wheel–
barrow. When other children talked about their fathers' Fords,
I used to brag that my Uncle Lemmie pushed me around in a
wheelbarrow) saw me scratching and told me that little ladies didn't,
