Buckle
was no one my age there-just The Golden Chaparral Poets and the school kids. Well, I thought, that at least meant they were giving only one college level scholarship, so enduring three hours of bad poetry and dancing might pay off. Out the few high windows there were no clouds, no seagulls-everything out there knew to stay away. The last event was of course the first ever scholarship award at the college level and I was called up for an envelope presented by the President. I smiled, mouthed a thank you over substantial applause, and immediately different groups of The Chaparral Poets came up and put their arms around me posing for snap shots taken by their friends. One group switched off with the next as I tried to peak into the envelope to see how much the check was for. Someone called to the President and she walked away just long enough for me to fold back the flap and see what I had come to fear and expect: a check for $25. I quickly tucked it back in the pocket of my dead step-father's sport coat and began walking down the long center aisle only to be caught up by the President and the fellow who flunked out of Iowa, inviting me to a member's hotel room to read a few poems and comment on the poems of those assembled there. No one knew I had checked the check, that I knew what a fatuous exercise in self-congratulation this all had been. They felt they hadn't been found out and so could continue to prevail upon my good nature, sustained by my gratitude and greed. I lied, saying I still had those guests from Seattle expecting me for dinner (there had been no lunch or food of any kind offered during the over three hours of the ceremony) and kept on walking out the door, waving politely a Thank You, Thank You, and a Good Afternoon Ladies, I didn't mean at all. Five dollars gas, five dollars parking, five hours of a Saturday shot to hell and the check for $25, which, after expenses, came out to $3 an hour for my suffering, for my aspiration to fame and fortune, emphasis on Fortune. Like any grad student, I was on a tight budget but would have paid $25 to be able to stay home. Driving back, I did not think about whether I really deserved a scholarship or not, or that I was just expecting to be lucky, to be rewarded for showing up. I thought about what Glover used to say about bad experiences, like "getting his bell rung" during a college football game-"at least I got a poem out of it"-but this was not the stuff of poetry on either end. The stuff of poetry did, over the years, keep me afloat and I managed to publish with little magazines and small presses, for which I was truly grateful. Nevertheless, I kept trying the contests; I sent in the fees, ate hot dogs and drank jug wine. I had a first ms. of poetry by the time I finished up an MFA degree in 197 6 and sent it into the Yale contest, one snowflake in a flurry, as I have said elsewhere. My somewhat realistic hope was that my ms. would come close enough to draw attention, and perhaps Stanley Kunitz would recommend it elsewhere, which is exactly what happened, 106
FUGUE#30