You Bombed!!!

by Greg Cotter

Around 1988
at my hottest

Diane Wakoski arranged a reading for me
at a bookstore in East Lansing

6 years after I’d graduated.

*

Uncertain about poetry
the obvious solution:

get drunk before the reading

*

After,
Diane and Robert held a party at 607,

exquisite wines, liqueurs, appetizers.

(Diane used to say, “No one really wants poetry,
you have to draw them in with food and drink.”)

They put on hundreds of such poetry events
in East Lansing over the decades.

*

I’d driven from LA

and was staying with Diane and Robert
in their basement apartment.

The next morning I walked upstairs
barefoot in jeans and T,

throbbing headache, bleary-eyed,
shoulder-length hair matted to my face—

Diane met me at the top of the stairs and yelled,
“You BOMBED!!!”
This was one essence of Diane
I’ve always loved:

no wasting of time,
no platitudes or false reassurance.

*

This week, 40 years later, she said,
“You’ve seen my volcanic temper,
but I recover quickly.”

And later that evening,
sitting in her living room,
bamboo furniture with yellow cushions,

D with red wine,
me the Evil Wied,

she said, gently,

“Your poetry is a jolt—
it can be difficult.

I appreciate the beauty and honesty of your reading.
It’s what we needed to hear.”