I’ve mentioned some big names before. When you mention these big names, you’re well, being obvious. I had a poem about that once. I did it naked for a show on PBS. It’s a long story (a very long story). BTW, I wanted to write this without the parentheses (the plural of parenthesis sounds vaguely biblical) and commas (and also the digressions, afterthoughts, additions, asides and comments). I’ve failed.

It never made the show. It got, um, cut (ouch). It did make the book tho, The United States of Poetry, and if you want to see me completely naked (as opposed to sorta naked?, that’s dumb) and don’t want to travel to New York (joke), pick up a copy, it’s out of print, of this large, very large, coffee-table book.

You’re being kinda obvious, Mike.

if you saw someone about to walk/under a falling anvil/would you say/"hey, don't walk under a falling anvil"/or would you not say it/cause you didn't want to be obvious

The big, very big, names I’m talkin’ ‘bout are ya know, Shakespeare, Rembrandt. Nearer to our own time we’ve got Picasso, etc. They’re really good, I think I’ve said that before, and, I don’t think I’m the only one – to say that before. In the movies, American movies, a big name is John Ford. You come to his movies the way you come to the work of these other names. You are aware that you are aware. You know he is a big name.

The same thing happens. I could say, and it would seem to be somethinc I would say, that the same thing happens to me. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying the same thing happens. Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Picasso, Ford, the same thing happens. You’re in front of somethinc that’s good.

I wanted to write this without the parentheses and commas because John Ford doesn’t have parentheses and commas. But that’s not true. John Ford is an American Artist, and American Artists have parentheses and commas. That’s why I use them, honestly (honestly?), not because I’m claiming to be an American Artist (tho, I might very well be), but because, I wanted to be one.

John Ford’s movies are really just digressions, beautifully framed.