NaPoMo QOTD Because Everybody Snores Sometimes. Even If They Say They Don't. They Do.

"And then we had a three-week cab guest
who snored; he broke the wilderness of our rest."
- The Gentle Snorer by Mona Van Duyn* (PoLau '92-'93)

Van Duyn did not enjoy being a PoLau. She said she would "run kicking and screaming in the opposite direction" to avoid doing it again. But I'm glad she did it once. She may just be the only poet in the history of ever (ok, not ever, but she's one of few) that didn't look to her own bouts of depression for a subject. she said that the years when she wasn't suffering were the "most real" and that's what she looks to. It's hard to write when you're in a good mood. At least, I think it is and there's enough angsty poetry in the world to sop up the ocean, so I'm incline to think I'm right. I really like that Van Duyn doesn't play into that at all.

*From The Poets Laureate Anthology, published by W.W. Norton in association with the Library of Congress. Poem copyright Mona Van Duyn.

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