sunday evening dedication going out to miss bovary
Sunday 13 July 2008 | someone left a cookie
SO, YOU FUCKED JOHN DONNE
for MJW
So, you fucked John Donne.
Wasn’t very nice of you.
He was betrothed to God, you know,
a diet of worms for you!
So, you fucked John Keats.
He’s got the sickness, you know.
You took precautions, you say.
So, you fucked him anyway.
John Donne, John Keats,
John Guevara, John Wong,
John Kennedy, Johnny John-John.
The beautiful, the wreckless, the strong.
Poor thang, you had no self-worth then,
you fucked them all for a song.
—Marilyn Chin, from Rhapsody in Yellow
•
What about Johnny Yen?
Why didn’t you fuck him?
Was he not smart enough for you?
And why not John Lennon, then?
And why did you spell reckless wrong,
And what is the BFD,
And I can no longer write in doggerel, because clearly I’m missing
something major here, and otherwise I really like your book
a lot, it has such mouthwatering language and energy and besides
Cate Marvin thinks this poem is brilliant.
•
PS: And now it has been bucketing down rain for two hours, and the phone line’s so full of static that it hangs up on me when I pick up the receiver, and I can’t get enough DSL connection to post this. Self-righteousness and great communication skills plus $5 will get you a gallon of fossil fuel, fair reader.
someone left a cookie
post your glowing encomium (or bitter philippic) »
Follow this heated, lively discussion through its very own feed; also, you can pingback or trackback from your own doubtlessly much more interesting site.
Yep, that’s why I was so curious about it. I mean, I read some of Chin’s available poems online and was like, well okay, but what is Cate Marvin all excited about.
And yeah, I don’t know what the BFD is. Except maybe it’s spiteful.