What if

What if famous magazines who publish poetry,

only gave the author’s name on a website

after you filled out a critique?

What if we didn’t know the author’s name,

whether they had ascended into the clique;

literati who wrote with the right amount

of ambiguity, verbosity and anger,

conforming to the latest styles and forms

popular at Yale or CUNY or the Iowa Workshop?

What if it was just good poetry

and they didn’t study with so and so

who studied with so and so

who studied with so and so

married to academic first cousins

who married first cousins

who married first cousins

begat on a sweaty university office floor?

What if they are frustrated housewives,

pediatricians, insurance salesman, suicidal journalists,

nurses, musicians or slaving on a factory line?

What if they write to spit at coffee houses and bars

just to hear fingers click like crickets?

What if they didn’t write to impress tenure committees?

What if they just have to write

poetry they’ll hide in a closet until dead?

What if famous magazines publish poetry

because real people read poetry and publication

is not just for lecture hall poetry rock stars?

…..and what if name recognition isn’t part of the equation

and craft is what matters and editors publish poetry

only because it’s just that f’ing good?

8-13-20