entitled to the work

One of my professors always used to say "you are entitled to the work, but not to the reward," meaning that, in our profession, where outcomes are rarely tangible or financial, the process itself has to be loved.

I remember falling in love with poetry, just like with a human being. It was my senior year of college. Late February, maybe early March. It was snowing, it was late. My friend and I walked from the University to the Sculpture Garden through the thick snow. Of course there is the beauty of snow late at night, the shape of hundreds of crows high in the trees, the way it wasn't cold at all because we were having so much fun. But what I remember best is that while we walked we were reading to one another, or reciting. Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, T.S. Eliot, W.C. Williams, Louise Glück, Shakespeare. I loved their words with the kind of radiant excitement of an intense crush. I loved what they did to and for me. Poetry meant hope, and it still means it. It enforces my optimism and my belief in the good.

And I try to extend the idea of work-as-end (rather than simply means) throughout my life. It's why I enjoy printing so much, I think: because, like poetry, it is really tied to process. And making clothing, too--because there is so much space for thinking in it, and because it requires joy in detail or in process (lest everything begin to feel like a task).

Still in residence until the weekend. I'm writing, making skirts and zakkabags, setting type and printing. And sleeping, reading, watching movies. Today I went to the juvenile correctional facility here and taught a class for some of the boys there. It was an amazing experience. I feel really lucky to have been able to visit them and talk about poetry with them. They were so attentive and interested and willing to ask, which was wonderful. I would like to go back and do more work there.

Also the mayflies hatched last night and today they are dying everywhere in huge numbers.