" Credentials"

I am not a Bread Loaf fellow and I haven't been to Sewanee adoration and fame are not my cup of tea. The Academy of American Poets doesn't recognize my name, no MFA or Guggenheim I'll never be poet laureate but for me, that's fine. It's just I write because I must. At 20 my art sprouted midst concrete and steel nourished by the Muse and desperation, but powerful, real having heart and my poetry isn't less because it got its start in prison presses, small newsletters, a few anthologies, chapbook contests, workshops- but without excesses quietly groomed- not flaunted there, slowly, like some jungle flower it bloomed - proud, undaunted.