John Roche.

I met John Roche, a professor of English at the Rochester Institute of Technology, at a Modern Language Association meeting he was attending in Boston. We went over to Bukowski’s Pub for a few tall ones and talked poetry. He warned me that there are these strange creatures lurking in the basements of institutions of higher learning. I will stay on the alert!

Joe the Poet in Academe

Joe’s office is down at the end of the hall

or maybe in the basement

used to be in a Quonset hut

surrounded by unmown grass and candy wrappers

Joe keeps the office door closed

plays Sun Ra, Buell Kazee, and Harry Partsch lps real loud

Joe never attends department meetings

students think he’s the janitor

In 500 years a vellum broadside of 1 poem from his 1000-page epic

will be the only surviving relic of our civilization

 – John Roche

 *First appeared in The Joe Poems: The Continuing Saga of Joe the Poet. Kanona, NY: FootHills Publishing, 2012.

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