SMALL NOTE(S)


For the Ruefle assignment--your assigned poem--I simply
wanted you to be able to say a few stunningly original things
about it. That's all.

2nd small thing: notice the acknowledgments page in
the back of Ruefle's book. Start being curious about such stuff.
For example, which of the magazines she lists here are
listed in the Best American Poetry volume, the Pushcart
volume? Ruefle also lists some "voices" that wander
through the poems . . . a few painters in this list (Olitski,
Kiefer) and a wonderful outsider artist (Henry Darger).
Nancy Eimers teaches poetry workshops at Western
Michigan University (I took a class or two with her). Com-
pare Ruefle's acknowledgment page with Kasischke's . . .
this sort of stuff is how you learn about how to get your own
stuff published--an insistent curiosity about it all. A lot
of dinking around (reading various lit mags). I used to
go to various New Magazine Agency stores, where they
stocked (and still do to some degree) lit mags, plus I'd
order back issues, for like a buck or two. Now even print
magazines have samples online, and probably half the mag-
azines are completely online . . .You will notice, at least
on the acknowledgment pages of poets who have been at
it a while, print journals still rule. The under thirty crowd,
well, not so much the case for them. We'll look at more
print magazines and online journals by and by . . . (does
anyone say "by and by" anymore? Did they ever?).