{"id":309,"date":"2007-11-22T22:36:35","date_gmt":"2007-11-23T02:36:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/2007\/11\/22\/philip-schultz-what-i-like\/"},"modified":"2007-11-22T22:36:35","modified_gmt":"2007-11-23T02:36:35","slug":"philip-schultz-what-i-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/2007\/11\/22\/philip-schultz-what-i-like\/","title":{"rendered":"Philip Schultz, “What I Like and Don’t Like”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I like to say hello and goodbye.
\nI like to hug but not shake hands.
\nI prefer to wave or nod. I enjoy
\nthe company of strangers pushed
\ntogether in elevators of subways.
\nI like talking to cabdrivers
\nbut not receptionists. I like
\nnot knowing what to say.<\/p>\n

I like talking to people I know
\nbut care nothing about. I like
\ninviting anyone anywhere.
\nI like hearing my opinions
\ntumble out of my mouth
\nlike toddlers tied together
\nwhile crossing the street
\ntrusting they won’t be squashed
\nby fate. I like greeting-card clichés<\/p>\n

but not dressing up or down.
\nI like being appropriate
\nbut not all the time.
\nI could continue with more examples
\nbut I’d rather give too few
\nthan too many. The thought
\nof no one listening anymore—
\nI like that least of all. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From Failure<\/i><\/a>; two other poems from this collection, “Specimen<\/a>” and “My Wife<\/a>,” appeared in Ploughshares<\/i>. He will be reading from Failure<\/i> at the Village Community School (272 W. 10th St.) on Monday, December 3, “book party, holiday party and general good cheer to follow,” according to the event listing.<\/p>\n

Schultz is the founding director of the Writers Studio<\/a> in New York City. In an interview back in 2000<\/a>, he talks about how his poetry upended his original literary aspirations: “I always wanted to be a fiction writer. I went to Iowa as a fiction writer. In my early 20s I was lucky: stories, whatever I sent out, was published. I got an agent, and I thought I’d be a novelist. Poetry is something I did with my left hand. But all that I wanted to achieve in fiction was happening naturally in poetry. The poet was supporting the fiction writer; usually it’s the other way around. But in fiction I was absolutely obsessed with writing “agenda” material, talking about material I couldn’t distance myself from to write a story. I went to poetry as a relief from that. The more frustrated I became in one, the more successful I became in the other. “<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like to say hello and goodbye. I like to hug but not shake hands. I prefer to wave or nod. I enjoy the company of strangers pushed together in elevators of subways. I like talking to cabdrivers but not receptionists. I like not knowing what to say. I like talking to people I know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/309\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}