The Way I Remember Pinsky

I was thinking about the time I saw Robert Pinsky, poet laureate at the time, read at the U of I. My buddy, Chick, called and said he'd run by (literally) and pick me up; the reading started in fifteen minutes. I balked. The conversation went something like this: "We won't make it in time.. I have a paper due...I've been up late this week and I'm tired." I distinctly remember Chick saying, "He's the poet fucking laureate, for chrissake! Get off your lazy middle-aged ass, you old bag. Get outside right now; we're going."

It was useless to take a car. I learned, early on, there was no parking that made the trip faster than walking the eight blocks from my apartment to the most far-flung building I frequented on campus. Chick arrived in minutes, and we started off on a run. By the time we reached the Old Capital I was gasping for air. Luckily, the trip was all down hill from there.

"Have another cigarette, Rox," he said, as he pulled me along. It was spring, our shoes squished deep into soft grass and mud as we made our way down the west lawn of the Pentacrest. I wasn't happy.

"Good plan; these were decent shoes."

Chick and I met when we worked an overnight job keeping high school students, on campus for a summer program, in a dorm and away from the college night life most of them longed to sample. They usually gave up by about 3 a.m., and that allowed Chick and I to spend a few hours each night to getting to know each other. He seemed fascinated by the idea that a fortyish woman would leave her life behind to enter college. I had liked him instantly; I wasn't fascinating many of the 20-somethings who were my colleagues at the time. We laughed about the discomforts of being raised in the tiny Iowa towns we came from, but he was smart enough to understand the precious marks those places left on us. We cried when Jer, another of the beautiful, talented boys who worked for the program that summer, died in a freak motorcycle accident.

The door was closing when we arrived at the reading. Jori Graham, the revered, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, pride of the University of Iowa's creative writing program, introduced Pinsky. She was bone thin with a fantastic mop of grey-streaked hair, wearing something hand-loomed and expensive-looking. Very poet. In a soft, distracted voice, making eye contact with no one, she read one of her poems. I thought it was affected, over-wrought, filled with obscure metaphors and vague references. I probably just didn't get it.

When Pinsky appeared, I was charmed. He spoke with muted pride about a project he was involved in that asked ordinary people to name their favorite poems. I understood everything he read, and particularly liked one with the central image of a green upright piano in his boyhood home. For him, it evoked memories of an injury his mother suffered that changed his family. It made me think about my dad's protracted illness and how it shaped my view of life. Not all of what he read touched me as personally, but an hour later I was thanking Chick for his invitation.

Chick acquired a hermit crab and named it Pinsky. I thought that was clever. When he went off to spend a semester in London, I babysat the crab. It spent its time scooting around its habitat, eating flakey crab food and sucking a sponge. About a week before Chick got back, I noticed no movement and realized the crab was dead. I felt terrible about it. I hope he doesn't think I murdered Pinsky in retaliation for the ruined shoes.