To Be a Rich & Famous Poet

Featuring the poem that won me $100, which I probably already spent.

Poetry is a tragic business.

You know, if you are paying attention, that most people would rather wait in line at the D.M.V. than read a poem, much less a whole book of poems.

You know, therefore, that no one will buy your book of poems except your grandma and your three friends who also write poetry.

Worse, you grant that even the most celebrated of all poets are known by most for a fraction of their life’s work: “The Road Not Taken.” “Song of Myself.” “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” And… how does the rest of it go?

So you know your odds of becoming a wealthy, famous poet are about as good as becoming the Prime Minister of Canada. Maybe worse.

And eventually, paradoxically, knowing all of this liberates you to write for the sheer ecstasy of it. I can only assume that’s why poets exist in the 21st century, or why they have ever existed.

Anyway, my poem “White Space” recently won the South Dakota State Poetry Society annual contest, which I am pleased to share with you here.

Thank you—seriously—for reading, listening, sharing.

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WHITE SPACE

Awake to snow-freighted pines,
          blue snow upon the pasture

where five shining horses graze
          with snow in their manes. They

know grass has begun to grow
          beneath the snow, having tasted

it only yesterday. A bruised bouquet
          of dried chili peppers dangles

from the doorframe of my cabin
          like a frozen claw. Crescent moons

of snow slouch in the nose slits
          and eye sockets of a deer skull

pegged to a post, its antlers
          and remaining teeth so dull

against unadulterated drifts
          of snow, not white, not ivory,

just bone, the hollow color of bone.

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