Untoward Occurrence at Embassy Suites Poetry…

after Marilyn Hacker

First I want to thank you all for coming,

for standing so patiently in line.

I know these are difficult times.

I know some of us hold the system in contempt.

So it's a helluva time for poetry to be in fashion.

Most readings, I aim to undermine things with pronoun

slippages and rot. I'm very pro-noun.

I often sing about the joy of coming,

how much I secretly love adverbs and fashion,

and walking pensively at dusk on the High Line,

filled with just the right amount of contempt

for my own deceit. Good times.

But this is not one of those times.

Tonight, I'd like to talk about one pronoun:

you. And one noun: contempt.

I have seen you coming

and going at this conference, debuting your line,

checking your font in the mirror. Fashion

is important to people who write in fashion.

I'm not saying I don't: the times are the times.

But I have watched you nod at a terrible line.

I have watched you sit stone-faced at pronoun

confusion, and, though you saw it coming

a mile away, smile at a dull allusion to Contempt.

Tonight I reserve my contempt

for you, audience. Per the fashion,

a few insurgents are coming

to take care of you. Sign of the times.

Trust me, I'm a pro. Noun?

Verb? Object? Casualties of the line.

Now you're near the end. I cut the line.

The gas is seeping in the vents, like contempt.

The blood is as slick as a pronoun.

Your bodies will be arranged in the latest fashion.

Your friends will read about you in the Times.

The doors are bolted. You can't stop what's coming.

Copyright Credit: Randall Mann, "Untoward Occurrence at Embassy Suites Poetry Reading" from Straight Razor. Copyright © 2013 by Randall Mann. Reprinted by permission of Persea Books, www.perseabooks.com.

Source: Straight Razor (Persea Books)