can I be among the best of my kind?

can I be among the best of my kind?

of poets? but some that are considered such

I don’t like (e.g., wallace stevens) and some I love

but can barely understand (e.g., dylan thomas).

isn’t such an aspiration elitist, in the context of

how all else that’s out there works?

take contracting: there are incompetent home-builders

and excellent home-builders, but none who wins

awards for leaving out floors, stringing electrical wires,

pipes, and heating ducts across the middle of rooms,

and creating contrapuntal patterns with vinyl siding.

architects may win awards for best conforming

to green building standards, but not for breaking

standards of any kind, unlike poets and other artists.

people make homes in the worst poems;

the best lock us out of every place we try to live.