This afternoon I got a note from the editor that offered me the chance to vote on the winning poem from among the finalists. I was pleased to note that I was one of the nine finalists for the award.
Then one of those wonderful kindergarten dilemmae arose. One is entitled to vote for three poets. Does one vote for one's own poem?
Ms. Nelson, who taught the little one-red-room private kindergarten where I gained my higher education, in a time before public schools were expected to offer calculus and sensitivity training to five year olds, would have had a simple answer. I am a big fan of simple answers.
I voted for three poems other than the poem I wrote.