His Lifelong Fan

Wasn’t influenced by Hemingway,
wasn’t influenced by Steinbeck,
didn’t give a shit about Kerouac,
hell no, thought they were pitiful –
needed to learn the language. Read
the entire grade school library at least
twice, became a bored adult extension
reader in the City at twelve. The English
masters at High School despaired when
told Shakespeare was dead. Didn’t they
know? Regretted what was said but you know
he actually IS dead. No-one writes gaudy
notes to Shakespeare, some heathens
try and replicate his sonnets, a great exercise
in word choice, rhythm and metre but to me it
is best left to Elizabethans.

So where did I come in? I met
a poet called Dylan. A dissolute
Welshman at Officer Cadet School,
listened to him reading. That’s when
I learned. Note what I said, ‘listened
to him reading’- for God’s sake he spoke
with an incredible power and delivery,
made the mundane classics stand
on their heads with fearsome intensity.
Fuck me, I’ve never recovered!

Never read his poems before, didn’t know him from
Adam; and I learned and became his lifelong fan.
© I.D. Carswell 2006