It was the height of foolishness, academia. You sank down and down in debt, in desperation, in hunger, so that you could feel a little special, a little brilliant in your small, dark corner of the universe, knowing something that no one else knew. Art was worth many things, but was it worth putting your whole family on the brink of extinction? Seamus didn’t understand Gerard’s calculus. He loved poetry, but he couldn’t always square it with the essentials of life.
