The month between Rune leaving me and the start of teacher’s college was a period of self-indulgence for me, and the irony of my situation was that I felt more like a poet than I ever had at a time when I was no longer writing poetry.
Part of the blame rested with my parents. They were quite happy to once again help me pay my tuition and rent, like they had when I was an undergraduate, particularly since my entry into teacher’s college had made them right, and me wrong, about the sensibleness of trying to make a living as a poet. In August, they began sending me seven hundred dollars a month. At the same time, I began receiving instalments of a student loan I’d applied for. The sudden windfall had a predictable effect on my motivation to continue working at the condominium, where I hadn’t
