{"product_id":"night-school-isbn-9780143132356","title":"Night School","description":"\u003cb\u003eA masterful new collection of poetry from the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the Ruth Lilly Prize\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e The poems in Carl Dennis’s thirteenth collection, \u003ci\u003eNight School\u003c\/i\u003e, are informed by an engagement with a world not fully accessible to the light of day, a world that can only be known with help from the imagination, whether we focus on ourselves, on people close at hand, or on the larger society.  Only if we imagine alternatives to our present selves, Dennis suggests, can we begin to grasp who we are. Only if we imagine what is hidden from us about the lives of others can those lives begin to seem whole. Only if we can conceive of a social world different from the one we seem to inhabit can we begin to make sense of the country we call our own. To read these poems is to find ourselves invited into a dialogue between what is present and what is absent that proves surprising and enlarging.\u003cb\u003ePraise for Carl Dennis's \u003ci\u003eAnother Reason\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The poems in \u003ci\u003eAnother Reason\u003c\/i\u003e, Carl Dennis's twelfth book of poems, open slowly and deepen with each reading . . . What he has to offer readers willing to take the time to walk and reason with him awhile is both profound and moving . . . Do yourself a favor:  get this book and read it.  Twice.\" \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e-- Carol Niederlander, \u003ci\u003ePleiades\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Dennis continues to eschew verbal flourish in favor of ethical force, extending the body of work that by now approaches the status of wisdom literature . . . He reminds us that poetry is not only an aesthetic but also a moral activity.  It's another way of thinking as well as feeling, another way to reason through the choices we've made or will make.\" \u003cb\u003e-- James Scruton, V\u003ci\u003ealparaiso Poetry Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eCarl Dennis\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of twelve previous works of poetry, as well as a collection of essays, \u003ci\u003ePoetry as Persuasion\u003c\/i\u003e. In 2000 he received the Ruth Lilly Prize for his contribution to American poetry.  His 2001 collection \u003ci\u003ePractical Gods\u003c\/i\u003e won the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in Buffalo, New York.A Stand of Cottonwood\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I'm glad to be here, amid these cottonwood trees,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Feeling the wind from the lake on my face,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Sniffing the marsh smells and lake smells\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As I listen to the calls of unseen shorebirds.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And I'm glad as well to acknowledge my civic coordinates:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To be standing fifty yards from the Coast Guard station\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Barely half a mile from downtown Buffalo,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At the western edge of the Empire State,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Which might have taken more care of its shoreline\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Had it been ruled, now and then, by an emperor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Self-seeding cottonwood that began to root\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Some forty years back, I've read in a pamphlet,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e After the beach shacks were torn down and dredges\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Stopped dumping the sludge from the channel here.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Trees that like their feet to stay wet while I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Am thankful for the boardwalk path\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Lifted a yard above the cattails.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Of the dozen birds named on the sign\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Beside their outlines, I can barely claim to know one\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By sight or sound. But that doesn't mean\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I'm too old to learn. Already I can distinguish\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Their calls from the traffic noise blowing in,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Now and then, from the Skyway, and the ship horns,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And the lunchtime bells from the Cathedral.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Maybe when I learn to listen, I'll hear\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The tree toads scratching, or the tree roots\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Gripping the stone-rich soil and drinking,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Or the termites tunneling in the logs-\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e All oblivious to how close they are\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To what used to be numbered among the top three\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Grain ports of the Western world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e So what if the grain is stored elsewhere now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It's time to focus on the life at hand,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Which explains why I've donned my safari hat\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And brought my binoculars:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Because it's now or never if I want to become\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Familiar with the residents of my neighborhood,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Including these pioneer cottonwood\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Rising above the boardwalk\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And the birds unseen at rest in the canopy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And why not include the three fellow pedestrians\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Now approaching at a leisurely pace,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Who nod when I nod, as if they knew me\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Or knew my kind. \"Look, here's another\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Late-blooming, cottonwood-loving creature\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With a northerly range.\" Or, \"Here's another\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Self-appointed surveyor of urban wetlands\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Who hopes to learn on the job\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e All he needs to know.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Fast Food\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I'd like to believe that the middle-aged woman\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Eating her dinner alone at the picnic table\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Provided by Ernie's Red Hots, just off Route 5,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Between Woodlawn and Silver Creek,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hasn't made a wrong turn in life that's deprived her\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Of friends and family. I'd like to believe that the words\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She was writing a moment ago weren't part of a letter\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Accusing someone of betrayal or indifference\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But were notes to herself, perhaps for an article\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She's been asked to write by the magazine she works for\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On fast-food providers on the eastern shore of Lake Erie.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Which of them take pride in their work-that's the question\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She may have committed herself to investigate.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Here's a woman who's always found work in an office\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Too confining, who loves exploring the hinterlands.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Thirty years ago she might have joined her brother\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the study of law if lawyers still rode circuits\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As they did in the era of her father's granddad.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e How sad to her the thought of being stuck forever\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Inside one courthouse, though she'd like to believe\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That some of the clerks at work in her brother's office\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e May find, as they browse a magazine on their break,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The very article she's now doing the research for\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And be gladdened to learn they needn't be rich\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To afford a meal that will leave them feeling\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e They've received, for once, far more than they expected.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The rolls at Ernie's, they'll learn, whether white\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Or whole grain, are fresh, and the mustard\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Offers an artful blend of piquant spices.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Before she gathers her notes and goes,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She may copy Ernie's address from her place mat\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e So she can send her review when it's published.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His own conviction of being true to his standards,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She realizes, may be all that matters. Still,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It's also true that a stranger's endorsement\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e May prove of use when he asks himself\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e If he's doing the work he was meant to do,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Or some of the work, at least, if not all.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Bad Days, Good Days\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On good days as well as bad the odds\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Against my birth seem overwhelming.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But on my bad days they imply that my claim\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To existence is tenuous, barely more real\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Than the claim of the billions of others\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Who missed the cut, while on my good days\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e My presence seems like a miracle.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It hurts my pride on my bad days to recall\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The story my mother told about her parents:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e How they wouldn't have met if the train\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That carried her father to the ship waiting at Hamburg\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hadn't broken down in a field near Brest-Litovsk\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e So he had to leave for America seven days later\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On the ship that carried my grandma-to-be.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It hurts my pride to feel my destiny\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Bound up with a broken axle or gasket,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But on my good days the wonder I feel\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Is a smaller version of the wonder\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Felt by cosmologists when they consider\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e How close the cosmos itself came to missing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The boat into being, to losing its chance\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For passengers, ports, and oceans,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For stars as plentiful as grains of beach sand.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The difference between my wonder and theirs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Is that mine is infused, on my good days,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With gratitude. Of course, they're pleased\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That everything managed to clamber aboard\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the nick of time, but the alternative,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Nothing at all, is too wispy for them to grasp,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Whereas for me the story of Grandpa's train\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Grinding to a halt on a snowy plateau\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Is a gift I never grow tired of opening.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e What a privilege it is for me to join him\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e While he paces beside the track as night comes on.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e What a privilege to share his brooding\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On the difference between his life\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e If he makes his ship and his life if he doesn't.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On my bad days choice seems denied him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He's no more free than the train is free to stop\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Or start when it pleases, or to leave the track.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On my good days he's free to interpret the accident\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As one last chance to cancel his plan to emigrate\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And return to his friends and family, who want him to stay.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And now I conceive him as free to set the question\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Aside awhile to note that the scene before him\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Would merit a painter's close attention.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e There he is, letting the lantern light absorb him\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As it falls on the workmen kneeling in the shadows\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Beside the engine while the snowy fields\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Stretch away behind them into the framing dark.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And now above them a display of stars\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Appears to be just in time, after a journey\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Of many eons, to complete a picture\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He isn't likely to see again.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Know Yourself\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Know yourself, says the oracle at Delphi,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Confirming my doubts about oracles,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Their assumption the self is a book\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Waiting for someone like me to read it,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Not a coat I stitch together each day\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e From dreams and wishes, habits and moods.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e If you know, says the oracle, that the portion\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Of courage you've been allotted is small,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Better avoid a career in fighting fires.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e If you know that you're short on patience,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Think twice about a career in teaching.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But who's to say you couldn't acquire the courage\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To enter a burning house if you served a long\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Apprenticeship in dousing porch fires?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Who's to say you couldn't learn patience\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By waiting a minute longer each day\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For a student to follow the steps of your argument?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Not long ago I would fret when waiting in line\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On the day of a concert to buy a ticket,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Thinking about the music I could be hearing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At home on the stereo, though I knew the concert\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Might make me feel part of a ritual\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That ushered beauty into the world.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But now I welcome the urge to join the audience.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Yesterday I would have felt extra lucky\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To learn, when I reached the window,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That my ticket was the last one available.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But today I feel sorry that the woman behind me,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Who's been willing to chat with me\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For close to an hour, will miss the music.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Am I really disturbed by the thought\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e She deserves to go far more than I do,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Having bought her ticket weeks back\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Just to be sure she'd have one\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Only to lose it yesterday evening\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When she left her purse untended for just a moment?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Who will I be today, I wonder: a person willing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To right a wrong by offering her my ticket,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Or a person content with hoping she's found\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Our talk so agreeable she's glad the last seat\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Has gone to someone who seems a kindred spirit,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Not just to anyone?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Joseph's Work\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He's done his work well for many decades,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Overseeing the produce at the market\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His brothers own, where I've had a chance\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To benefit from his careful diligence\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In maintaining quality in the bins,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The same virtue displayed on a larger scale\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By the Joseph his parents were thinking of\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In naming him, the favorite son of Jacob,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Who ended up as the overseer\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Of all the Egyptian granaries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Like the brothers of Joseph in the Bible,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e His brothers, he's implied in a few asides\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Over the years, haven't behaved as brothers should,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Though they never threw him into a pit,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Angry their father loved him the most.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It was more a case of everyday bullying\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That his father noticed but didn't stop.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As for forgiving them all as Jacob's son\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Forgives his brothers-weeping with joy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e When they come from Canaan in a time of famine\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To buy grain-there the Joseph I know\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Admits that he's fallen short,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Though he's tried to resist resentment\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By avoiding their company evenings and weekends.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And now and then on Sunday, when the weather's good,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I've passed him as he's sat on a bench\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In our local graveyard. Maybe it eases him\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To wonder how many of the dead around him\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Might have been happier if they'd managed\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To put away thoughts of blame,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e How many, if they couldn't manage to wish\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Their brothers well, managed at least\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Not to wish them ill.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And the next day he's back at work,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Making distinctions between plums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Fit to be served at a banquet and plums\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Fit to be served at a potluck supper at home,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Marked by more than the usual lumps and bruises\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e But still to be savored, not too tart or sweet.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Blind Guest\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I want to believe in him, the blind man\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Who makes the other guests at the dinner table\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Forget his blindness as he launches himself\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Into the talk around him. I want to believe\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e He's moved by the lively exchange of opinions,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Not by the fear he won't be asked to dinner\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Again if he sits all evening in silence\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And the silence is read as suggesting\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That luck alone has spared the others his hardship,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That by rights his days should be sunny too.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e If I can believe he isn't looking for sympathy,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That he doesn't expect me to share his burden,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I'll feel so grateful that I may be willing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To do what I can to share it. Though I can't\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Loan him my eyes once a week\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For an hour or two, I can try to dwell\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On the good it might do him to escape\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The pervading dark for even a moment,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To visit the world only light reveals.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And I can try to picture how reluctant he'd be\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To return the loan when the hour was out,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e How unfair it would seem to him that I\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Would be the lender always and he the borrower.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Two Lives\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In my other life the B-17 my father is piloting\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Is shot down over Normandy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And my mother raises her sons alone\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On her widow's pension and on what she earns\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e As a nurse at the local hospital, a sum\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That pays for a third-floor walk-up\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In a neighborhood that's seen better days.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I play stickball after school in the lot\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Behind the laundry. I come home bruised\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e From fistfights and snowball fights\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With boys who live in the tenement on the corner.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Not once do I play with the boy I am\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In this life, whose father, too old for the draft,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Starts a paint company in a rented basement\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That almost goes under after a year\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And then is saved, as the war continues,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e By a steady flow of government contracts\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e That allows my mother to retire from nursing\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And devote herself to work with the poor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I find our quiet neighborhood of handsome houses\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e And shady streets crushingly uneventful.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e No surprise I spend hours each day turning the pages\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Of stories about trolls, wizards, giants,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Wandering knights, and captive princesses.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In my other life, I have to leave high school\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To bolster the family income as lab boy\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the building attached to the factory that in this life\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e My father owns. I clean test tubes and beakers,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With a break for stacking cans on the loading dock\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Or driving the truck to make deliveries.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In this life it takes only one summer of work\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e At my father's office, addressing announcements\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Of a coating tougher than any made by competitors,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To decide that the real world, so called,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Is overrated, compared to the world of novels,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Where every incident is freighted with implications\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e For distinguishing apparent success from actual.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e No wonder I'm leaning toward a profession\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Where people can earn a living by talking\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In class about books they love. Meanwhile,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In my other life, after helping to bring the union\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To a non-union shop, I rise in the ranks\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To become shop steward, and then,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Helped by a union scholarship,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I earn a degree in labor law.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I bring home casebooks on weekends\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To the very block where I happen to live\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ensconced in this life, here in a gray-green house\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e With dark-brown trim. If I don't answer the bell\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On weekends in summer, I'm in the garden,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Strolling the shady path beneath the maples,\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Musing on the difference between a life\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Deficient in incident and a life uncluttered.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Seated at my patio table, I write a letter\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Asking a friend what book has he read\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e In the last few months that has opened his eyes\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e On a subject that's likely to interest me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Meanwhile, across the street, in the garden\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Of my other life, I can often be found\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hoeing the rutabaga and beans and cabbage\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I plan to share with neighbors in the hope they're moved\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e To consider planting a garden where many","brand":"Penguin Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46301698425061,"sku":"NP9780143132356","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780143132356.jpg?v=1767733724","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/night-school-isbn-9780143132356","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}