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The poets
The last time William Klootkorn put
together a book length collection of
poems they looked at life through the
eyes of a 70 yeai old Kansas tanner. The
book, entitled Alvin Turner As Fanvoi,
was published by Road Runnel Press last
spring.
Now ho has completed another set of
48 poems and sent it off to a California
publisher, but the main character is a
little different type of person.
" These poems are about a 19 year o'd
youngster," Kloefkom said. "They show
him leaving a small midwest town, boied
and restless, and he wanders around the
country bumping into people.
"The book is called Moving On. It
begins with restlessness and ends with
restlessness," said Kloefkom, a teacher ol
creative writing at Nebraska Wesley an
University. The boy starts out with the
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yourself to flesh influences, like when;
other x:ople an; at ancf saying, 'That's a
bunch ol bullshit. I wouldn't do it that
way.'
"You've got to have that kind of
extreme si; If belief. The neat thing about
it is that everybody's dilferent.
"I mean, I really admin;
professionalism, I really admire
dedication. And I would accept anything
if I felt that it was done with that level ol
conviction. Whether or not I ayieed with
it oi not. Whether or nut I was interested
in it. But I really appreciate that
dedication, you know.
"And anything less than that is jusl
some kind ot foppish jacking off."
notion he might do great things but he's
ilways b,;ho!(i:ng to the little town he's
from."
He admits the therm; isn't new, but
he'll tiy to bin. g a little freshness to tfvj
wi ihng.
"If you sit aiuund waiting for a totally
new subject you'll wait foiever,"
Kloefkom said. "You should try to
invent new ways to say old things. Only
to i m is new."
KJoelkom, AO, with medium length
gray hair and sideburns that stretch down
below his ears, was born on a !aim in
;.outh central Kansas. When hi! was 2 his
parents moved to Attica, a Kansas town
of 700, and he grew up then1.
"The poems in Alvin Tnrnoi were
piovokcd by my grandfather, who is dead
now, and I've written about, him ;:s I
would have him be," Kloelkorn said.
from Moving On
(44)
There is a beer can bobbing on Wulclen Pond.
Also a duck.
Not far from Oshkosh, Wisconsin,
a young man in marshmallow pumps
is drop kicking a football.
He is unaware of the girl in the yellow smock,
in Tallahassee, who is reciting First Corinthians 13:3,
or of the kiss in Sandy Springs
who hns chosen the school custodian's closet
as the setting for her first pregnancy.
Meanwhile, a jet drops from the air
like a deceased quail,
a length of its instrument panel
blooming like curious grass for the milkcows.
Along the main street of Timothy, Wyoming,
a rodeo queen is aware of her measurements
while in a cemetery west of Waterloo
the Republicans and the Democrats
are at each other's bones.
Even in Chicago the various world drones on:
a pimp on State Street peddles leftover liver,
a man not more than half a mile away
dances with his only wife,
a woman.
William Kloefkom
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