Rev. Danny Fisher

This past semester, I finished all of the required coursework for my doctoral program at the University of the West. As such, I have decided to leave campus and complete my writing project elsewhere. My saintly pal and old roommate Phil has kindly offered me a place with him for the semester in New Haven, CT, and I have accepted. So, I’ll spend the next few months bumming around there, toiling on my project.

I will miss UWest and my friends here, but it’s time to move on.

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It’s all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author’s name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, “Shhhh.”

Then start again.

- “Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?” by Ron Koertge