Day Job And Night Job Comments

I am thoroughly enthralled by this man's writing. Thank you, Kim Barney and Frank Avon, for sharing your thoughts and research. It feels good to spend time with talent

Good narrative poem, nice encapsulated and insightfully penned. Thanks for sharing.

Amen to everything Frank Avon said below. This poem is captivating. I was drawn in, fascinated, from the beginning and it just kept getting better and better. Fantastic poem from a very talented poet. I'm glad you didn't become a lawyer, Andrew!

Hudgins is one of the great living poets, and this poem is a prime example. Unlike most modernist and contemporary poetry, it is accessible and direct. It engages readers. Why hasn't he been one of our poets laureate? How many of us - and how often - have had to answer the question, Why couldn't you be more practical? And how well Hudgins' metaphor captures the way we often see ourselves: another slack romantic / chasing his heart like an unleashed dog / chasing a pickup truck. The form of the poem is so subtle that at first I didn't even notice - for example - his rhyming scheme ABCB, with just enough half-rhymes and off-rhymes to keep the tone casual and conversational. Yet the ballad stanza is there, and even before we notice, it has satisfied our yearning for order in a world of disorder.

Again, a beautiful poem. the chaotic mixture of technical description and critical frankness give a stark contrast, feels like the poem itself. No doubt this is a personal poem. The hints of special memories, both buried and cherished.