Michael Burns wasn’t a poet whose name you could drop in a circle of well-read poets and expect instant reverence. Outside of the Ozarks, it’s hard for anyone to know who he was as a writer, hard to understand what a great teacher he was, how much you could both hate and love him.
And I loved him.
He had this gift. He could take your poem, and with a few strokes of his editorial pen and three minutes, tear out all the shit you didn’t want to tear out. I can’t count how many times he would take a poem of mine and show me how to make it stronger by eliminating the cruft.
How many times he told me that “this is a so-what poem.” In another words, who gives a shit.
It hurt every time. But he was right. He was always right. And now, after finding out that he died from a heart attack last Friday, I find myself missing his mustache, his pen, his no-bullshit demeanor.
I found a book of his that he signed for me. And he wrote:
For Zach,
whose own poems I enjoy, and I look forward to seeing more of them.
Michael
1-30-01
Springfield
I wish I could show them to Burns. I’ve never wished for something so much in my life.
