Robert Hass

Maybe it has been a matter of rhythm.

The river flows past. Bare trees in winter, Green shade in the humid summers.

The brief astonishment of spring, incandescence Of fall. Drinks at the Deadwood, readings

At the Mill. Readings at Prairie Lights

Or in a university auditorium. Parties

After the readings. Dinners before the readings. Seminars in a classroom at EPB and then

At Dey House. About fifty new writers a year, Hungry, full of dreams, readers, insomniacs, Faculty writers. Visiting faculty to be housed. Directors: Jack, Frank, Sam. Themselves

Like the others, writing and trying to write. A hundred young writers a year to find money And jobs for, fellowships, teaching gigs. Admissions to be read. Visiting editors.

The river flows past. There is always one crisis, Or more. Somebody manic, exultant, Somebody hurting. Bare trees in winter, Green shade in the humid summers.

Farm country surrounds the town, the town Surrounds the university. The university Surrounds the workshop, which is legendary. Two thousand writers in forty years, and Somehow it works. Poems to the workshops On Monday, and stories, chapters of novels

To be worked over. Young writers on long walks, Arguments in cafes, fevered middles of the night. Critiques, revisions. The drama is in all those heads Dreaming into and out of the buildings, Brooding on this chapter, this arc of the music Of the language. And often otherwise oblivious. And somehow it all works, has for forty years, Somehow someone’s drama had to be the building, As if a kind of grace, or magic, ineluctable

But absolutely present. Understood the rhythm, Was orchestrating it, navigating it. How amazing!