Reading

Man, I have not read enough poetry. Embarrassing admission: I just came to know John Berryman's work in the last year. I went through grad school in English and didn't read one of the 20th Century's greats. Too much lit crit theory, I guess, or the wrong classes? I was into fiction writing at the time, so I took a lot of novel and short story lit courses. I'm just afraid that I'm being incredibly derivative and don't know it because I haven't read stuff. Or, if I try to talk to a "real poet" about writing poetry, like if I e-mailed Bill Knott, I would show my complete ignorance about poets/writers/art/music. At times I just say, what the fuck, I don't care. I'm doing o.k. with the tools I have, and I know how to do what I do. But there's always the nagging feeling I'm under-educated in some way. Probably this is a common feeling; there's too much too read and too little time. I also need to have a life, by the way.