The "Tuftsian Aura"

OK, let's set the stage. Sunshine and I attended the Kingsley and Kate Tufts poetry awards. Now, Pulitzer Prizes are great, but the Kate Tufts Discovery Award is for the year's best first book of poetry by a promising poet. For $10,000, that's a good gig if you can get it. The Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award is conferred upon a rising star in poetry—one who has not yet peaked in his or her career. I rather prefer the $100,000 prize for this one, though I lack the talent to earn consideration for either honor. Oh well.

While my primary reason for attending is the poetry readings (OK, yes, I also like watching $110,000 being given away, even if I get none of it), I was more than a little giddy by the time Ieft this year's ceremony. I'm not into hero worship, mind you, though some may be tempted to think otherwise before the end of this entry. Robert Pinsky—poet laureate during the second Clinton administration, founder of the Favorite Poem Project, and one of this year's judges—proved more than properly eloquent in someopening remarks. Robert Wrigley, a former Kingsley Tuft Award winner (2000) and upcoming recipient of another national award (to be presented next month in New York), gave valuable insight into how the judging is conducted each year. Other notable poets, including most of the judges and a few past winners, were also in attendance.

The poetry resonated with me in a way that the 2004 readings failed to do, recalling instead the point during the 2003 awards that Sunshine turned to me, tears having already traced wide trails down her cheeks, and told me that she finally understood why I love poetry. We have Linda Gregerson to thank for moving my wife so deeply, by the way. And while all of this, set in the Pompeiian Room (Java warning) at Mt. Saint Mary's College, was why we had gone, with our friends Victor and Britt in tow, it was not the highlight of my evening. Getting my copies of the winning books signed is a tradition when I attend, but the best part, for me, came after.

I walked up to Robert Pinsky, an eminently approachable man, and thanked him for the Favorite Poem Project, to which his reply was gracious. He pointed out what I had, to my discredit, missed. The latest compilation to come out of the Project, An Invitation to Poetry, is not only out but includes a DVD of selected readings by contributors. He was kind enough to ask my name and where I taught, though neither, I am sure, is a piece of information that has any place in his schedule. Had that conversation been the end of the night, I would have left a happy man, but there was more.

One of the preliminary judges, Derick Burleson, whom I thought I had recognized when he had walked in from the awards banquet, approached me and introduced himself, asking my name and where I worked. He had thought I had looked familiar, and though we were unable to find, in 15 minutes, any connection, we enjoyed a fine talk about poetry, education, and the people who might have been bridges between us. Again, had that been all, I would have been more than simply delighted, but Robert Wrigley walked up as Derick and I were talking and asked if Derick had a cigarette. My pack was closer at hand, so I offered him one (as I had done when speaking with Alan Trachtenberg many years ago), and the three ofus stepped outside for a smoke.

The conversation turned to stories of students, the "lightbulb moment," which is a term I settled on in the late 80s, though I have since found numerous others who also derived it, Derick included, the things we do and the things that happen in class. I discussed E. A. Robinson, who is my favorite poet, and my passion for Borges (my apologies to a translator who may soon get a disk in the mail). Robert asked me if I was considering returning for my PhD, and I said I wanted to but foundmyself torn between Robinson, Borges, and others. He told me to pursue the PhD and do my work with Robinson, whom Wrigley said, "needs to be brought back." That was my first impulse, and I have used that precise wording many a time.

We had to leave, but I found myself reinvigorated. It was not hero worship, though. I respect these poets, but that is far different. This was a validation of the path I had set before myself many years ago, even as I put forth other, equally valid paths in these discussions. Can I do it? Can I return Robinson to a place of respect within the canon? I don't know. Despite what people have said about me ego, it isn't large enough to allow me to claim I could effect so great a change. I just have to try (my apologies to George Lucas and Frank Oz). The only honor greater than being told that the path a respected poet regards as my best is the one among those before me I have felt most strongly about would be success on that path. How is it possible that the future can be at once dark and blinding?