Poetry by David Kirby

               ​Mike Maguire CC



This is Where It All Takes Place

              At the shoe store, I say, Do you have those Rockport work shoes 
that look good but have the comfort soles? I'm on my feet a lot,
                             and the salesperson says, Where do you work? and I say,
At the university, and she says, In the dining hall? and I say,

              No, I teach poetry, and she says, Isn't teaching just sitting on a desk 
and talking? and I say, Not the way I do it. In my sophomore 
                             interdisciplinary honors course on public intellectuals, 15 
of 15 students checked “excellent” for “overall instructor rating.” 

              Damned straight. I taught the hell out of that class. I taught that 
damned class so hard I lost weight. What is teaching, though? 
                             Good teaching, I mean. My friend Luther tells me that when 
he wanted to quit smoking, he saw an ad for a seminar on breaking 

              the cigarette habit through self-hypnosis, so he goes to the Days Inn 
and pays his $35, and in walks a guy with a shiny jacket and lots of
                             pomade who says, Mah name is Howard Fleming, and ahm here 
to teach ya to quit smoking though self-hypnosis. Tomorruh, 

              ah want ya to look in a mirruh, and ah want ya to say, Women 
don’t lahk me. Ah am not a success at mah chosen profession. 
                             Ah do not dress well. Ah am overweight, and ah eat all 
the wrong things. But today, ah quit smokin’—forevuh! 

              Luther got a workbook and a cassette tape which he gave me later, 
and on it you can hear Howard Fleming saying, Remembuh--
                             self-hypnosis takes place in your mahnd. In that documentary 
about poor doomed Amy Winehouse, Tony Bennett says, 

              Life teaches you how to live it, if you're lucky enough to live 
that long. You’re right about that, Tony. Just remember, 
                             it all takes place in your mahnd, as the ancients have been 
telling us for centuries, though it sounds better coming 

              from Howard Fleming, doesn’t it? It is not actions but opinions 
concerning actions that disturb men, said Epictetus, yet who knows 
                             where he got that from? A commoner, 
a slave—someone who spent a lot of time thinking, probably, thinking big.


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David Kirby teaches at Florida State University. His collection The House on Boulevard St.: New and Selected Poems was a finalist for both the National Book Award and Canada’s Griffin Poetry Prize. He is the author of Little Richard: The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which the Times Literary Supplement of London called “a hymn of praise to the emancipatory power of nonsense” and was named one of Booklist’s Top 10 Black History Non-Fiction Books of 2010. His latest books are a poetry collection, Help Me, Information, and a textbook modestly entitled The Knowledge: Where Poems Come From and How to Write Them. 

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