What Groundhog Day Means to Poets

When the movie Groundhog Day was released in 1993, it received mixed reviews. Since then, however, the film has been embraced by many as a dark-horse (woodchuck?) comedy with serious undertones.

It’s even been embraced by Buddhists, who see TV weatherman Phil Connors’s repeating day as a metaphor for reincarnation and striving to try, try, try again until you reach enlightenment.

But I come not to praise born again (and again, and again) weathermen, I come to show how Phil’s inability to escape February 2nd echoes the life of a poet.

How shall I compare thee to a winter’s day, then, one that starts with Sonny & Cher on a clock radio singing, “I’ve Got You, Babe” at 6 a.m.? Like so:

• a poet writes every day
• a poet wakes to see the same poems every day, and the more he tries to change them, the more stubborn they become against transformation
• a poet calls on pick-a-Muse-any-Muse and gets Sonny & Cher (the 10th and 11th Muses) instead
• a poet knows the drill because he’s been there before (note the hard hat)
• a poet sends “finished” poems into the world
• the world sends “unfinished” poems back to the poet
• a poet recognizes each day as yet another “No Reply At All Day” from markets
• a poet reads good poetry
• a poet says of good poetry, “Looks easy. I can do that!”
• a poet writes good “finished” poetry, sends it into the world, waits through months of “No Reply At All Days,” and receives “unfinished” poetry back from the world
• without comment
• a poet writes a line he considers brilliant only to stumble upon the same idea in a poem he’s never read before
• until he reads it
• and thinks, “Great minds think alike, you lousy thief!”
• a poet builds “I Got You, Babe” habits:
• like black coffee
• like riffs upon riffs of background Bach
• like byzantine marketing systems
• a poet, realizing reader-fee markets won’t go away unless you boycott them, only sends work to non-fee markets (if he can still find them)
• a poet, realizing poetry markets will dry up without resources, ponies up reading fees until he realizes he is a poetry market, too, drying up slowly
• a poet rationalizes
• every day
• again
• and again
• and again
• else he’s no poet
• finally, and most importantly, a poet believes, with persistence, that his day will come
• it’s called February 3rd
• and when it comes, he will seize the day
• as his own.