"simple vocabulary"

my old buddy Tom Beckett posts a rare moment of autobiography. like Tom's poems it's humble while still packing a punch.

& it reminds me of just the opposite. early in my career an editor accusd me of using too much language. for me it's never a conscious choice. I write whatever needs to be written. I can't remember back to my 20s but I suspect when I wrote abt "the octogenarian nizam of Hyderabad" I was as taken by sounds & richness of wordage as by anything else.

& the 3 people who read me closely are aware that in the 45 years my poems have been popping up in print I'm as capable of low cal lines as language slumgullion.