alternate route

Poets and artists must resist this: The MFA way or the highway.

A degree works for some but not for others. A watershed has many tributaries.

polished away

When craft is pressed to an extreme that gleam that was the thing’s original light becomes a sheen

witnesses for the defense

There was no framed diploma on the wall of his office. But sometimes he would run a finger bumping along the spines of the books in his personal library. He thought these authors, though most long dead, must vouch for him.

magna cum libri

He was a graduate of that shabby academy called a used bookshop.