I am not a poet. <br />I have not been to university: <br />no old lecturers have singled me out <br />for special things to come, <br />I have no plaques, no artifice; <br />I am not the word-worrying kind. <br />I am not a teacher, <br />and so have no notes on the side; <br />(draws of folded manuscript in <br />both neat and shabby hands) : <br />I am not bald or balding, <br />as yet, and have no length of beard <br />to practice academia from. <br />I have no means to fund it, <br />and no fortune to parade it. <br />I am not a poet, <br />I have not made it. <br />Nor am I a church warden; <br />a retired councillor; a librarian. <br />I don’t amass The Literature, <br />then never read it. <br />I am not so Irish. I have no blood <br />in Wales or France. <br />Nothing in me is of Portugal. <br />I am not a woman, soft-faced <br />and gentle, pushing poems <br />past forty, in a stream of horticulture: <br />semi-retirement and Latin flowers. <br />I am not a critic, nor a monarchist. <br />I am not a poet <br />these past so and so years. <br />I have no grant, no salary. <br />I have never looked my most solemn <br />in Westminster Abbey, and <br />thought of a retirement there. <br />My car is not old and worn out: <br />I don’t own one. <br />I never ponder my train journeys. <br />There are never moments when, <br />looking back on those who are, <br />I think: If they were then as I am now, <br />why can’t I….? <br />But I don’t, because <br />I am not one of those.<br /><br />Stug Jordan<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/i-am-not-a-poet-2/
