Mea culpa for the blog silence. I’m enduring a computer crisis, as well as preparing for the imminent prepublication sale of my chapbook (hooray!) — not a good time for my laptop to shuffle off this mortal coil. Anyway, whilst I deal with that, I just had to share this quote my husband clipped out of the New York Times: it’s from a commencement address given at the College of Mount Vincent by the playwright John Patrick Shanley:
Not to bring up something upsetting, but when you leave here today, you may go through a period of unemployment. My suggestion is this: Enjoy the unemployment. Have a second cup of coffee. Go to the park. Read Walt Whitman. Walt Whitman loved being unemployed. I don’t believe he ever did a day’s work in his life. As you may know, he was a poet. If a lot of time goes by and you continue to be unemployed, you may want to consider announcing to all appropriate parties that you have become a poet.
Marie Gauthier 