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Marginally Credible Disclaimer I confess to having serious reservations about opening this page. Even recognizing that a website is all about shameless self promotion—duh!—it still feels as though the decent response to these poems is a humble, blushing thank you after the delivery, followed ever after by a shared pretense that this never happened. And yet. without compunction, I perpetually recycle all the glowing blurbs that I’ve managed to extract from anyone whose name might carry a little weight with the people who book poets. What’s the difference here? The difference seems to be that this feels much more personal. There are things that, while perfectly acceptable in the abstract, are not meant for publication—things, for example, that happen between two people in a bedroom. There is, I am told, a lot of pornography on the Internet. But what makes it pornography is not, in most cases, what’s being done, but rather the fact that it’s on the Internet, the publication of it. And yet (that phrase again; I’m starting to sound like John Roberts before the Judiciary Committee. But then, I often sound like that.), all of these poems were presented to me by being read in an open mike, which is itself a kind of publication, sub-media though it be. More to the point, I think these poems mean more than all the blurbs in the world. As a group, we poets are generally pretty self absorbed. You’ll never see a headline in The New York Times announcing, “Poet Writes Poem About Himself;” that’s not exactly news. But when a poet, especially a good poet, is inspired to write a poem about another poet, that deserves to be recorded someplace. And if the poem is a good poem, all the more reason to get it out there. Of course, if you suspect I might be predisposed to think these poems are good, I’m not in a position to give you any argument. All that said, my heartfelt thanks to all the poets represented here. I would like to think that I sometimes live up to your words. I love you guys. Driving Directions for Jack McCarthy by Sue Allspaw Pomeroy, Boston poet relocated to Denver Poet by Sita Carboni Vancouver poet and poetry organizer Jack McCarthy Gets Up (with apologies to Leo Kottke) by Lea C. Deschenes Crack Jac Myth by Boston poet Jim Dunn
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