"Rock Star" Poets

There's no such thing.

And that's a very very good thing.

It's a common phrase in our vernacular right now and gets bandied around a lot. In fact, a well-meaning individuals have used it to describe me on certain occasions when an endeavor or project enjoys a moment of success. The first time was right after my graduate lecture at Bennington. I did a good job, the audience filled with other MFA graduate students and faculty seemed to like it and apparently nobody could tell I was two seconds away from peeing my pants. Afterward my former teacher Liam Rector said, "How does it feel to be a rock star for day?" At the time I thought, "Wow, a rock star for a whole day! They like me, they really like me."

Rock star is meant as a compliment, it means one is being acknowledged and appreciated for her work. So I always take it for what it was meant and appreciate the sentiment.

But I am not a rock star and I can't come up with a single poet who I think low enough that I would use that term to describe him -- and I have rather low opinions of quite a few poets out there!

Rock stars are inflated, over-rated, STD-ridden, destined for self-demise, pathetic creatures temporarily put up on pedestals, pumped with false, lavish praise leading them to believe they can soar into the heavens. What always happens is that they lose all perspective and sense, take a leap and crash into the concrete. Rock stars become sidewalk kill -- and the ones who make it through that quickly become toothless caricature of their former selves.

When you think about it, it's really not a compliment!