Lower the standard: that’s my motto. Somebody is always pushing the food out of reach.
We’re tired of falling off ladders. Who says a child can’t paint? A pro is
somebody who does it for money. Lower the standards. Let’s all play poetry.
Down with ideals, flags convention buttons, morals, the scrambled eggs on the
admiral’s hat. I’m talking sense. Lower the standards. Sabotage the stylistic
approach. Let weeds grow in the subdivision. Putty up the incisions in the library
facade, those names that frighten grade-school teachers, those names whose U’s
are cut like V’s. Burn the Syntopican and The Harvard Classics. Lower the
standard on classics, battleships, Russian ballet, national anthems (but they’re low
enough). Break through to the bottom. Be natural as an American abroad who
knows no language, not even American. Keelhaul the poets in the vestry chairs.
Renovate the Abbey of cold-storage dreamers. Get off the Culture Wagon. Learn
how to walk the way you want. Slump your shoulders, stick your belly out, arms
all over the table. How many generations will this take? Don’t think about it, just
make a start. (You have made a start.) Don’t break anything you can step around,
but don’t pick it up. The law of gravity is the law of art. You first, poetry second,
the good, the beautiful, the true come at last. As the lad said: We must love one
another or die.”
We’re tired of falling off ladders. Who says a child can’t paint? A pro is
somebody who does it for money. Lower the standards. Let’s all play poetry.
Down with ideals, flags convention buttons, morals, the scrambled eggs on the
admiral’s hat. I’m talking sense. Lower the standards. Sabotage the stylistic
approach. Let weeds grow in the subdivision. Putty up the incisions in the library
facade, those names that frighten grade-school teachers, those names whose U’s
are cut like V’s. Burn the Syntopican and The Harvard Classics. Lower the
standard on classics, battleships, Russian ballet, national anthems (but they’re low
enough). Break through to the bottom. Be natural as an American abroad who
knows no language, not even American. Keelhaul the poets in the vestry chairs.
Renovate the Abbey of cold-storage dreamers. Get off the Culture Wagon. Learn
how to walk the way you want. Slump your shoulders, stick your belly out, arms
all over the table. How many generations will this take? Don’t think about it, just
make a start. (You have made a start.) Don’t break anything you can step around,
but don’t pick it up. The law of gravity is the law of art. You first, poetry second,
the good, the beautiful, the true come at last. As the lad said: We must love one
another or die.”
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