Before Jack Morgan was the most bad-ass vegetarian poet in the world, there was a kid everyone called Skyler. He knew how to look happy and cute.–––––––––––——————****I've been writing secret messages here again.
Yesterday, Jack Morgan won a fancy poetry award, so he took his friends out for a fancy dinner. No one took any pictures for some reason. I wish I had a photographer friend who wanted to document all of the crazy things we poets in the bay do. I skip so much of what happens; I can't put it all on this blog. Plussssss, pictures are the things they make books out of when we're all big and famous. I love looking at pictures of language poets when they were young and hot with all of their amazing haircuts and shirts. There are museums filled with pictures of the beats.
There aren't many pictures of me as a kid growing up, and I guess there won't be many pictures of my artistic rise. But I like pictures, and I wish there were more.
At first, I got a little depressed about winning the award. It's a lot of money, which is nice, but Cameron said I was selling out, and even though I know he was joking, it got me asking myself if I was. I take my integrity too seriously maybe. Luckily, I have never taken a class with any of the poets who could have been judging, and it would be utterly impossible for anyone to know those poems were mine. I don't want to win anything or get anything that I didn't earn. That sounds lame when I read that, but integrity is the only thing I have that's worth anything. It's hard to measure how talented or deserving a person is of accolades if you don't look at their integrity. If you don't have any of that, who are you? What are you worth?
Winning this one, the Judith Stronach award (I've won it twice now), means I will be reading at a reception at UCB on April 24th, and then at Lunch Poems (Robert Hass's series) in May.
One of them will be recorded and posted online.
/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\///Chad Vogler, I've been thinking about you. Everyone knows you won the Eisner award because GGOB edited your Harlem Hide-and-go-Seek poems. It isn't your fault that he has no moral compass, and I don't fault you but pity you and envy you at the same time. I wish I had won the Eisner, but not like that. I'm sure you'll get into whatever MFA program you want! Congratulations in advance on that.
Speaking of Ethics, have you ever noticed that Ivy Leagues keep having issues when it comes to ethics? Is there anyone in those east coast brick houses who isn't a liar, a plagiarist, or a rapist?
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I feel sorry for people who don't have good mentors. A person I don't like at all, a person who has hurt me, has a very bad mentor, who will get him far I suppose, but I feel bad for him because getting far isn't worth compromise. I am glad and eternally grateful for a great mentor and great friends who serve as constant reminders that you don't have to be a liar and a whore if you don't want to be.
6 comments:
Congrats, Jack, well done. & I dig the turtle neck. Truly a great look that you should bring back.
I have three pictures from when I was young. My mom had about 15 photo albums full, and then didn't pay for the storage unit they were in, and all of the stuff from my youth is lost forever. I feel your pain. We should start taking more photographs, people will definitely want to see pictures of the only person who won the nobel prize for literature twice someday.
Nice job, yo!
Take the money and run, son. Don't agonize over it -- spend it on frivolous things you couldn't avoid otherwise.
good news about the award. hip hip!
also, if i ever move to to the bay area i will document your every move in one of those creepy stalkerish type of ways.
Thank you everyone. I am happy. I think that I will spend it on trying to get my manuscript published. Cameron brought up some good points some nights ago regarding first book-length books, and I have decided to give it another go before self-publishing. I am just getting impatient I guess.
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