The Ten Bulls of Zen Made Easy - My Poetry Bookshelf

Looking at the book shelf today, I am going to pull one from earlier in the Moon Traveller transit. Bob Watt has a special place in my space. When Robert Steffens read his poetry at a St Cathernines H.S. guest lecture, it connected what Dylan was doing with what we were living in (Wisconsin). And things began to open up from there. I'd say the poems are best when read, and they arent unlike a droll comedian's monologue. The important thing about his poetry was that, like a 3-chord Velvet Underground song, it beckoned you to try it yourself. He called himself of the school of Inferior Poetry. Kind of like Punk Rock. I did a write up on Bob's passing (we'd kind of gotten to know him enough to say 'hi' on the street later in Milwaukee, and Madison), and that tribute is located here. To emphasize the Everyman Angle of Watt - Jeff De Mark tells the story of working as a substitute English teacher at Eureka high in the early 90s the teacher once gave me a week to teach American modern poetry. Bringing in Elliot, Pound, Ginsberg, Williams but finding Bob Watt was one those students loved more than any other poet. They instantly got that "inferior poetry" thing...just write, even if it is terrible, at least it's YOUR thing and people can't take that away from you.



MADISON UNIVERSITY UNION

BY BOB WATT

Steps above theater. 

     I watch people come up 

four or five at a time. 

Catch their eyes and give

     them a message. 

They seem High and Holy.

All seem open 

          to some new message 

     They are ready can -- we bring 

it on?

Now that they're ready 

     the message will come from 

their own happy centers, it has happened 

     before we even knew, it was happening. 

There it goes again just now. 

     It can happen anytime 

Blip, another 10,000 opportunities 

coming past all the time.