I’ve been thinking of retiring, of selling the poetry business
and enjoying my twilight years. It’s a prose poem business, so it’s
a niche market. Still, after thirty-some years, I must have assets
worth well in excess of $300. Perhaps the new owner of the business
will want to diversify, go into novels or plays, or perhaps merge
into a school or a movement. It won’t matter to me once I’ve
retired. Maybe I’ll do a little traveling, winter in the Southwest.
Take up golf. Spend more time with the family. Maybe I’ll just walk
around and look at things with absolutely no compulsion to say
anything at all about them.
Reprinted from the March/April 2003 issue of Speakeasy,
a bimonthly magazine ‘for readers and writers,’ published by
the nonprofit Loft Literary Center and edited by Bart Schneider,
former editor of the Hungry Mind Review (now Ruminator
Review). Subscriptions: $24/yr. from The Loft, 1011 Washington
Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55415;
www.speakeasymagazine.org
