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Page 55.
 “That was at a bridge on the Seine. I forget which one. Here’s another from the same time period and place. I think I was just getting over a girl named Madelaine, a waitress over in Montparnasse. I had a crush on her, and she crushe me.”
Now he read to her his poem #77: Night Time, Star time.
She lay quietly thinking after he had finished reading in a slow, even voice. Then she said: “You have a nice reading voice. I hate it when someone reads poetry in a high, keening voice.”
“I know, that’s weird, huh?”
“I can hear that quiet music inside of you, now that you have read so many of your poems to me.”
“Thank you,” he said sincerely. “Nobody has ever taken an interest like you have.”
“Too bad I have no publisher connections. Real estate, yes. Paleontology, yes. Restaurants, yes. Poetry not so much. Not any. Does anyone read poetry anymore these days?”
He gesticulated. “It’s all around us every moment. I don’t mean like abstract things like metaphors, electricity and all that. I mean we listen to pop music that is sung verse.”
“A lot of it really bad.”
“Admittedly, but most poetry is very banal and affected. There may be feeling but no compositional skill.”
Ruefully, she said: “If it were a common talent, everyone would do it.”
“Yes. I always like to think about people who fancy they are writers of fine art: would you walk into a symphony, pick up a violin with no training, and start scratching and squeaking away?”
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