This is a poem from Inside a Writer’s Head. Read more from and about the collection here.
One day I might have need
To clarify what I mean
By various lines, or
Works, or kinds
Of characters and events.
Surely I’ll be misinterpreted,
As authors all must be,
Especially when they’re dead
And can’t explain their meaning.
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all,”
May be what I must say,
And then they’ll ask
For an explanation,
Which I’ll surely be happy to give.
I’ll answer the questions,
Set the tale right,
Be interpreted as intended.
But how convoluted
Will their claims be
After I’ve lost all my hair,
Or any simple flair
Identifying me as an individual?
I didn’t note this in the collection, but the quotation is from T. S. Eliot, from his poem “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
