Buckle
in the short poem and asked, "You really think that's a good image" and then smiled a bit sadly. That was it. My first five seconds of fame, gone in a flash. Moreover he advised me that those college anthology things were usually a racket. True enough, shortly after the highly congratulatory acceptance letter came another asking how many copies, leather bound, of the anthology with my poem in it I would like to order at $39.95, which was not small change to a graduate student in 1973. Those companies, they took at least one poem from every sad soul who sent in. I never ordered a book or saw one, hoping that since I did not come through with the cash, they would drop my miserable poem from the book. So much for early Fame, but Fortune was fast on its heels. Three or four months before I was set to graduate, Glover stopped me in the halls one day to ask if I had heard from anyone regarding a scholarship? I said no. I was planning on enrolling in a MFA program in poetry after SanDiego State and had no money saved, so a scholarship would be a lifesaver. Glover offered no more details, just a hint of a smirk, and a couple months went by. Then one evening at my step-sister's house-where I baby-sat her three kids while she went to night school and where I received my share of poetic support via free dinners-the phone rang and it was the President of The Chaparral Poets of the Golden West. I had, she reported, been recommended by Prof. Glover Davis to receive their first ever college scholarship and would I be able to attend their convention in three weeks time at a hotel in San Diego. Dollar signs! I couldn't believe it, but I did, and I didn't pay any mind to the oh-so-poetical name of this group. I felt as if I'd just got a hold of that bad cord on the old toaster, and the air around me was humming with scholarship, scholarship, scholarship! Man, was I polite, jotting down times and dates and places and names, thanking the President and what must have been the large panel of judges who selected me from among thousands for this prestigious award! At the time, it didn't even occur to me that I had never sent in a group of poems to this organization. In the weeks to come I became only marginally dubious as she called asking if I might leave early on Saturday to pick up several lady members on my way into town, and would I perhaps be able to come down the night before the ceremonies as well and give a workshop for their members, and a few other requests that I have now forgotten. I made excuses about people visiting from out of town to get me out of the bus service and the workshop. Still, I was thinking scholarship all the way-$500, $1,000, even $2,000 dollars-after all the word was scholarship as in supporting one while in school for a year, or more. Scholarship, I would endure the afternoon, and probably there would at least be a free lunch and maybe I could duck out early if they began with the college part. Wrong. There is no free lunch. You knew that. I knew very little. It had to be worth while-an organization with members, a hotel conven104