Watching the nonstop maddening show of U.S. politics and culture these days, I have been reminded of the poem “To My Enemies” by the under-appreciated American poet Bert Meyers.

Meyers was born in Los Angeles on March 20, 1928. The son of Romanian Jewish immigrants, he maintained strong lifelong ties to his Jewish cultural heritage without being religious. Always rebellious and a questioner of authority, Meyers decided to drop out of high school and become a poet.

For many years, he worked manual labor jobs including janitor, farm worker, house painter, and printer’s apprentice, until he became a master picture framer and gilder. With this work, he finally found some satisfaction in the process of craftsmanship and attention to detail, which was the same approach he used in composing his poetry. Throughout these years, Myer continued to write, feeling that a poet should be immersed in the world, not ensconced in academia, and should have real-world subjects to write about. As he wrote in his journals, “I worked for more than fifteen years at various kinds of manual labor and during that time I met many men and women who could see and speak as poetically as those who are glorified by the printing press and the universities.”