I’m a really good poet, everyone reads me, everyone
Loves me more than I can even count. Just yesterday
I heard that my books are selling incredibly at all
The bookstores, really, it’s just amazing. I’m not
Surprised by this at all as I’m a really really good
Poet, I’ve been doing this for years and years.
I’ve sold I can’t count how many poems to all
The littlest of magazines, and some big shots
As well. We’ve been getting phone calls like
Crazy, really, they want me to come read more
Of my happy and even some of my depressing
Poems. People love my poems all kinds.
I’ve sold so many of my poems, really, I know
How to sell them, have been selling, and all
Of my poet friends who used to call me friend
Now there all filing petitions saying my poetry
Isn’t that good. Which makes no sense, really
As everybody loves my work, really, I can’t
Think of anyone who doesn’t love me and love
My poetry as well. Some of my critics even
Like what I write even though the corporations
They have to write for are telling them to
Keep quiet about my poems as it’s not good
For the market but everybody everybody
Everybody loves what I do with these crazy
Lines it’s so easy, and look at who else is
Writing poetry, they can’t even write a
quatrain they're all horrible, I’ll read my
Best poems for you tomorrow night after
I win more national prizes, almost five tonight
To be exact, people are loving me and my
Poems all over the country, it’s just amazing.
DeWitt Clinton is Emeritus Professor at the University of Wisconsin—Whitewater, and lives in Shorewood, Wisconsin. A few poems from a book length adaptation of Kenneth Rexroth’s 100 Poems from the Chinese have appeared in Cha: An Asian Literary Quarterly, qarrtsiluni, Verse Wisconsin, Verse-Virtual, The Missing Slate, and at medicinthegreentime.com. He received an Honorable Mention in the 2014 Lorine Niedecker Poetry Award by the Council of Wisconsin Writers.