If I had a real poet’s name,
a name like Pádraig Ó Tuama,
I might be taken seriously,
and I wouldn’t have such insecurity and trauma,
or maybe Seamus Heaney
and people would find me poetically brainy
or how about Ocean Vuong?
Then nothing would go wrong
and people would see the deep blue sea
of poetic profundity in me.
And then there is Joy Harjo
and I would be thought a real poetic pro,
but what do you do with a name like Bob?
How can a poet be named Bob?
It is so pedestrian, so banal, so ordinary.
And so, I just sit here and sob.
Why couldn’t my parents have named me Robert,
like so many great poets
a name meaning “of great fame”?
Oh, wait, they did
and such fame I stand ready to claim,
a designation that clears the poetic fog
and I have nothing but deep
appreciation and gratitude
to the people who visit my blog.

*the poets named above are featured
in an issue of the e-newsletter of On Being.