Intro: Jay Diaz

George Elliot Clarke got me into this mess. He’s not at this year’s writer’s festival, but if he was you can bet I would be doing some fist shaking in his general direction.

Until I heard George read at the festival, I wanted to be a teacher. Wouldn’t that have been the life? Good pay. Summers off. Good pension. Benefits.

And then he had to go and read that poem about his mother’s kitchen and all hell broke loose. Somewhere in that kitchen (probably near the stove, I think there might have been a bready smell), I got this ridiculous notion I wanted to be a writer.

And where has this got me?

8.75 an hour is not good pay.

4% per check is not a vacation.

Smoking more does not reduce the need for a pension.

And I need a root canal.

Damn you George Elliot Clarke.

But, wait a minute...if the organizers hadn’t brought him here in the first place, none of this would have ever happened. All these years my fist shaking has been misplaced.

It’s not George’s fault (how could poetry really make that big a difference in someone’s life), it’s the festival’s. How could I have been so blind? The cause of my misfortune has been staring me in the face every September and I have done nothing.

But that ends today. No longer will I allow my fist to tremble with flaccid impotence. No longer will the guilty escape my wrath. I will find the culprits responsible for George’s appearance and...

Well, I’m not really sure what will happen, but you can bet there will be some heavy duty fist shaking involved.

* * *

Jason Diaz is a Winnipeg-based writer and bookstore employee. His poems and prose have been previously published in dark leisure magazine. He was interviewed for the Uniter once and is probably the only blogger here licensed to drive forklift. He doesn’t have any books coming out, but would most likely write one if asked.