nature

A POSITION AT THE UNIVERSITY

 By LYDIA DAVIS

I think I know what sort of person I am. But then I

think, But this stranger will imagine me quite otherwise

when he or she hears this or that to my credit, for

instance that I have a position at the university: the

fact that I have a position at the university will appear

to mean that I must be the sort of person who has a

position at the university. But then I have to admit,

with surprise, that, after all, it is true that I have a

position at the university. And if it is true, then perhaps

I really am the sort of person you imagine when you

hear that a person has a position at the university. But,

on the other hand, I know I am not the sort of person

I imagine when I hear that a person has a position at

the university.  Then I see what the problem is: when

others describe me this way, they appear to describe

me completely, whereas in fact they do not describe

me completely, and a complete description of me

would include truths that seem quite incompatible with

the fact that I have a position at the university.

NB: I don't in fact have a position at a university, well, maybe sometimes, in that I teach every other semester or so, on occasion, a writing course so does this make me someone with a position at a university because in fact it is a university and I do on occasion teach there so perhaps I am, like the prose poem character, a person with a position at a university although my position comes and goes but perhaps that doesn't matter in the definition of a person with a position at a university. Indeed, I could be considered by some such a person and this is what happens when you run and listen to poetry and poets talking about poems you come back and write stuff like this.  I like the poem though because it pokes fun at people with positions in the university as well as people without positions in the university.