honcho

reading this post by u.k. based aussie poet laurie duggan reminds me a bit of my own education in poetry. or mis-education. or whatever. i made my discoveries pre-internet padding thru the stacks of libraries where one discovery dove-tailed into another. an education like that has many disadvantages including reading a lot of poetry that might block or hold you back in your development. but i loved it. i think i learned from everything and everyone i read. i recall some letters to the editor published in the newspaper american poetry review by john yau where yau mentions nyc poet jim brodey as both being homeless and suffering from aids. i had to find out who brodey was tout suite. in short, i had no head honcho who could guide me in my practices of reading and writing. i would've benefited from such a honcho, greatly. but by the time i got into university i was past the need for a guiding light and was well on my way to becoming a poet. in my defence, i knew i was to become a poet and even had the idea, from past examples as varied as dylan thomas and arthur rimbaud, that one didn't even need to finish high school to become a writer. i think my eclectic reading served me well. i developed a voracious curiosity and i think i can, even now, read the writings of say post-avant and formal poetries without irony and without contradiction. that means i also developed a distaste for canons and canon-makers, even if i agreed with the makers. later i developed a hatred for the categories of 'minor' and 'major' writers. in the end, who cares. what matters most to me is the high i get from poetry. i still get high from poetry. i don't care who might be declared the honcho or no.