Are you a poet?

D.A. Powell's mention of Etheridge Knight had me reminiscing: In 1984, when I was 20, I hung out at a Philadelphia bar called the Bacchanal, especially on Mondays, when they had their poetry readings. I had written so few poems, I could memorize them all. During the open readings, I'd recite my poems without paper, clutching a bottle of beer, with my eyes closed. The applause I got gave my confidence a big boost--like Gertrude Stein said, "What an artist needs most is praise." After a few weeks of this schtick, the organizer scheduled me for a feature reading with, trumpets and drumroll, please, Etheridge Knight! Shit, man, here I am hobnobbing, featured, dude, name on the same flyer with a legend, mind you. Universal fame then decades of creative intensity and fertile, gestating leisure, not to mention endless nookies, can't be too far away, I thought. Minutes before the reading, as I was drinking a Rolling Rock at the bar, Etheridge walked over.

"You ready?"

"Yeah."

"Are you a poet?"

Annoyed, I stared at the man, "I'm reading with you and I'm not a poet?"

"Just answer me. Are you a poet?"

"Of course I'm a poet!"

"OK, so let's go read then!"

It didn't take me long to realize Etheridge had no money. A visit to his apartment confirmed it. He was living in Logan with his girlfriend, and I bought a yellow tin of jasmine tea as a present. We had dinner that night. The fact that Etheridge managed to exist outside the system was very inspiring to me, C.A. Conrad, Tom Devaney and many other young poets in Philadelphia. We also admired his life experience. Etheridge would jokingly call me, "professor," although I had no college degrees and was also dead broke. I was a filing clerk, an office and house cleaner, a window washer, a gallery technician and a house painter. I didn't get my first teaching job until four years ago, when I was hired by Bard College. Since then, I've taught at U. Penn, Naropa and the U. of Montana. So I became a professor, after all. Etheridge also turned academic when he earned a bachelor’s degree in American poetry and criminal justice from Martin Center University, in 1990, the year before he died. Knowing Etheridge was very sick, I phoned him in Indiana.

"Goodbye, Etheridge."

"Goodbye, professor."