I've had to learn the simplest things last, said Olson. I think, everything has been a slow grind for me. I didn't marry until I was 48. which brought a child that was now 'mine': a dad. I graduated from college at 52. I am right now learning to drive. not driving is a different perspective. try to imagine. I used to run to work, 10 miles each way. not always the full distance, but always the effort. one time a goodly snow storm. I shovelled out at home. I ran to work. I helped shovel at work. one of my co-workers arrived late and said, what a hard ride in!!! so now I've done a few laps at the schoolyard prior to today. today, I negotiated some side streets. topping out in 1st gear at 10 mph. slower, that is, than my running pace in my prime. but learning. we live in so many assumptions. poetry, for me, is not an assumption. it's more geologic, an accumulation. writing was important from that day when I started 'doing' it. poetry slowly evolved as the thing in which. I know for some of you, poetry is a love. difficult to write, yes, difficult to read sometimes, but it's a ready love. it isn't for me and never has been. it is difficult for me the way learning to drive at 52 is difficult. I don't mean to equate poetry with functionality. I'm looking at the act or action of writing poetry, and how it beckons yet (somehow) doesn't invite. I really like Henry Gould's seriousness about poetry. I think poetry is worthy of dedication, of just the sort Henry evinces, against the stream and all. its implicit vitality can inform one's depth perception and consideration. yes? yes! very yes!!! do you remember learning to drive? I'm cruising along at 10 mph consciously avoiding that girl, that dog, that parked car. it is utter consciousness, to the point of utter confusion. to write is to enter that very consciousness, and eschew that very confusion. eventually, 2nd nature will kick in as a driver. oddly, there's a 2nd nature in writing that is absolutely false. that is the crappiest stuff that Whitman or Ginsberg ever wrote, that is as bad as the boxes of writing I sent to Ohio State's archives. I hope someone out there groks my theme here. because there is a lot of writing written out of 2nd nature. all the New York Poetry redux, and such and such. langpo mach 3. all the and so ons we are all guilty of. for you, all of you, driving a car is a thoughtless enterprise. for me, it is the news of wonder.