Writers who don't love enough

Love was missing in number at the Associated Writing Programs Conference in Atlanta, attended by 5,000 writers. If anyone there loved anyone else on earth, she had invariably stayed at home, especially to tend children and pets and plants. Writers don't love. Once I met a maestro who guessed, "You don't like love very much, do you?" And I thought of going home and writing a bestseller called Writers Who Don't Love Enough. It was a jest, but someone should write a book called that for writers who don't love enough. The happiness lasted an hour. The happiness lasted in the eyes. The eyes teared at readings; the cupped hands clapped echoingly for C.D. Wright, gratefully for Yusef Komunyakaa, Stephen Dunn, and Evie Shockley.