ordered the songs we know best: john ashbery's early life from the liberry. i reckon a grasshopper would gravitate to his early poems, like some trees, and houseboat days. i can't say why i say this. i love them, that's probly why, and i love grasshoppers. think about the unique symbiosis of two species, poet and grasshopper, who only meet through the medium of me- reader and the insect fan. two other beings i would like to be, or a hybrid creature, the grasshopper poet.
i read j.a. in school and i was in awe of the way his mind hopped around, and in the article today i read a poem from his 13th year, and he was already the poet, concealing and revealing like a leaf hopper changing colors and words by intuitive natural magic. now i get a little sad all over, as i often was then, drinking beer, reading houseboat days. you need a particular mind to make a poet. lacking that, you still need poetry. and grasshoppers. i think the reason why is that every one needs, even poets, they need their poems, like grasshoppers need cattails, for symbiosis, cause every one lacks for something, and no one is complete.