In 2006 a high school English teacher asked
students to write a famous author and ask for advice. Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond – and his response is magnificent: “Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:
I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.
What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.
Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art, and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.
Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six-line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?
Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash receptacles. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.
God bless you all!
Kurt Vonnegut
Why six lines or sentences?
Tear it, scatter it to trash
Why not save it for references?
Oh no, don’t do it for cash
You say my soul will grow
But Lockwood won’t know
C student:
Good start-your rhyme scheme is a,b,a,b,c,c
I don’t think Kurt will be able to respond, so I will have to do.
Do I detect a note of derision in your fourth line?
By the way, I think Kurt would say that if you write something really good and throw it away, you will still have it, saved perfectly for future reference.
We write and create for ourselves foremost. It’s selfish but true.
God bless you, Kurt Vonnegut, wherever you are.
No derision intended
He can’t be offended
Kilgore said, “not to get money”
And “draw a funny”
Maybe my “oh no”
Was not the way to go
Ambiguity is the stock and trade of good poetry. If you try to be too clear, you might as well be writing prose.