the good, the bad, and the ugly

the good: John Talbot, English faculty and brilliant poet, came to chat with my 518 class (advanced poetry workshop) today. At one point, SJ (as opposed to sej) asked him what his favorite poem was in his book The Well-Tempered Tantrum. I was expecting an embarrassed hesitation on his part--I don't know Talbot very well. Instead he pointed out two poems as clearly being superior to the others--superior to the point that he insisted on reading both and talked about how brilliant one was. "As soon as you write like that," he exclaimed, "I'll buy your book." The best part? They were my two favorite poems in the book, one of which I had felt rather foolish for pointing out as my favorite poem because it wasn't one of his super-dense-intellectual-only poems. Which he also said something about: (in regards to Eliot's "Four Quartets") "For ten or fifteen years, it didn't even occur to ask what the poem was about."

the bad: Talbot was so excited about his own poetry, that he took up more than half the class period in which we were to workshop my poetry and SJ's (who has appeared as OrneryGuy in the past). The result was SJ and me battling it out PaperRockScissors style. I had FOB flashbacks, but without the pleasant company.

the ugly: Due to the limited time and the fact that it was somehow difficult to keep everyone on task, I managed to throw myself into a panic attack while workshopping my poems. That being said, I did get some good ideas for "things incommon." I think instead of coming off out of breath and panicked/anxiety-ridden, I was super efficient. Not sure which is scarier.