Milton Acorn Is Full of Poetry

 I've been reading Olivia Chow's amazing 2014 autobiography My Journey. So I woke up dreaming of my years in Toronto, and Milton Acorn. A review of Olivia's book will follow when I've finished reading it, but in the meantime, here's an old poem of mine about Milton.

 

Milton Acorn is Full of Poetry

even tho
you repeat yourself
thinking even your mumbles
are more important than
the truths of beginning poets

and even tho you've never even
acknowledged that I write poetry
you old fart

I am still a student of
THE MILTON ACORN SCHOOL OF POETRY
even if you are too
goddamned proud to open it

So the only way I could join
was to declare it
OFFICIALLY OPEN
in this poem
So here it is, Uncle Miltie

And even tho I've said
a nasty thing or two
in this dedication
More Poems for People is still
the only book I read often enough
to hide my money in

from my book Foot Through the Ceiling
1986, Aya Press
it won the inaugural Milton Acorn People's Poetry Award in 1987

note 1: Milton did eventually recognize that I had some talent as a poet

note 2: The story of finding hidden money in More Poems for People is true. I can't remember which birthday, prob. circa the late 1980s, but I shook out a twenty dollar bill and went to Greenwood Racetrack.