83 POETS & WRITERS^I
F LIFE is, at its core, a series
of lessons disguised as mis-
takes, then I could, feigning
egotism, put aside my diffi-
dence and boast having been
in some small way a teacher to
six dozen notable, and rightfully
nervous, contemporary poets. If I
had not come along, after all, per-
haps Dana would not know what
it feels like to be stuffed into a
refrigerator, and Mark Doty would
not know what it’s like to be bur-
ied alive. Aimee Nezhukumatathil
would never have turned into a
fish, even for a moment, nor Bren-
dan Constantine into lightning. I,
meanw hile, remaine d only mys elf,
whoever that is.
For thirty-six months, I’ve been
inculpated, but never charged, in
attempting to kill, maim, mutilate,
destroy, and, worse, revere many
of America’s greatest living poets.
For a project called Children of
Grass, I’ve crisscrossed the coun-
try in search of a cabal of the
greatest craftsmen of our mother
tongues—its poets laureate, its
Pulitzer winners, its chancellors.
I got to meet and make with some
of the poetry world’s most notable
lights and also be blessed by a
whole lot of lesser-knowns rec-
ommended by their peers. Look-
ing back I see that I’d enlisted to
go on a census of sorts, but what
I got instead was a campaign of
adventures.Vijay Seshadri