Special Event: A Conversation and Reading Featuring Lloyd Schwartz
Posted in 2016-2017 Readings and Talks
April 19, 2017
Conversation and Reading 4:00 PM | Lannan Center (New North 408)
Moderated by Professor Maureen Corrigan
A True Poem
—Lloyd Schwartz
I’m working on a poem that’s so true, I can’t show it to anyone.
I could never show it to anyone.
Because it says exactly what I think, and what I think scares me.
Sometimes it pleases me.
Usually it brings misery.
And this poem says exactly what I think.
What I think of myself, what I think of my friends, what I think about my lover.
Exactly.
Parts of it might please them, some of it might scare them.
Some of it might bring misery.
And I don’t want to hurt them, I don’t want to hurt them.
I don’t want to hurt anybody.
I want everyone to love me.
Still, I keep working on it.
Why?
Why do I keep working on it?
Nobody will ever see it.
Nobody will ever see it.
I keep working on it even though I can never show it to anybody.
I keep working on it even though someone might get hurt.
—
From Cairo Traffic (The University of Chicago Press, 2000)
Read more about Lloyd Schwartz