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By David Schweidel
When my first-born child was six years old, I found myself standing in front of her first-grade class, trying to teach poetry. My wife had volunteered me at Back to School Night. (Don’t ever miss Back to School Night.) I mean, have you faced a room full of first graders? They fidget. They squirm. They’re […]
By David Schweidel
Riding a leisurely train down along the Hudson from Poughkeepsie to New York, I ate an avocado sandwich, read Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, and then, with a map my friends in Poughkeepsie had lent me, plotted a sight-filled route from Grand Central Station to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The river disappeared behind dark buildings, the train passed through a series of short tunnels, I studied the map. I didn’t want trouble out on those mean city streets so I set tough rules for myself: Don’t stop. Don’t gawk at the tops of buildings. Don’t look confused.
By David Schweidel
I AM NOT A POET
By David Schweidel
El Paso, Texas is a brown town, the brown of mountains, the brown of desert, the brown of skin and earth and muddy river. When I arrived in El Paso as a five-year-old in the summer of 1959, I wanted to see that river, the famous Rio Grande. I’d seen it in movies, glorious cowboy movies with majestic vistas and mighty, rushing rivers, silver water sparkling in the sun. I wanted to see the river and the mountains and the horses and the cowboys. I wanted to see the Wild West of my dreams.