It won’t stunt my growth?

 

04‑15‑80

 

 

 Okay, so it won't stunt my growth, hamper my vision, or distort my speech; but I still don't like it.

 I have enough of an ego without incorporating something like Joel Lewis', Michael Alexander's or the host of other wannabe poets and writers who haunt the campus here, documenting their own lives for some future researcher, making sure to keep old copies of their manuscripts so that some foolish undergraduate later will be able to trace the steps of their genius.

 I just want to write.

 That's part of the reason I have refused to take the trip to Manhattan to become another member of the East Village crowd, the group of braggarts that cling to the heals of Allen Ginsberg over at St. Marks Poetry Project.

 Michael Reardon, the god of WPC, has read there numerous times, with a slavering Michael Alexander practically begging for an invitation.

 But Reardon and Lewis seem to dislike Alexander, seeing him perhaps the way some of the professors here do, as an overly enthusiastic hanger‑on with some talent but without the respect for tradition that is required.

 His lack of respect for tradition is what I admire about Michael Alexander, his need to be accepted is what I find puzzling.

 One of the professors here suggested I go elsewhere to college, perhaps some place near Paris, or at worst ‑‑ if I must stay in New Jersey ‑‑ Princeton.

 I have neither the desire nor the ability to take on either, too self taught to put up with the bullshit I confront on a campus like this, let alone the high and might attitudes of those who have claimed themselves guardians of culture.

 One professor claims I frustrate him because I have taught myself almost everything I know, leaving me further advanced in some respects, but with huge gaps not found in more traditional students.

 Most of what I learned came from hunching over books when I lived in rooms in Paterson, Montclair, Passaic, New York or Los Angeles, trying to find truth in a grain of sand because the rest of the world seemed too large for me to take on whole.

 I came to college to fill in the gaps I knew I had and I have come face to face with poets and writers who find life as one big social set. They talk about writing, they boast about writing, but do almost everything associated with their art, except write, and by inviting me to join them, expect me to do the same, when all I really want to do is go into a corner and write.

 They don't seem to get it.