Putting together a large, grant-funded programming series takes a lot of things. Imagination. Organization. Courage. And a little stupidity. I have written an NEA Big Read grant three times for the library where I work. Two times, I was successful, and tonight, Roz Chast--a brilliant cartoonist from The New Yorker and author of the graphic memoir Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?--appeared at the library virtually. She joined us via Zoom and was everything I expected: wildly funny, incredibly insightful, and painfully truthful.
Sharon Olds confronts a painful truth . . .
The Missing Boy
by: Sharon Olds
Every time we take the bus
my son sees the picture of the missing boy.
He looks at it like a mirror--the dark
blond hair, the pale skin,
the blue eyes, the electric-blue sneakers with
slashes of jagged gold. But of course that
kid is little, only six and a half,
an age when things can happen to you,
when you're not really safe, and our son is seven,
practically fully grown--why, he would
tower over that kid if they could
find him and bring him right here on this bus and
stand them together. He sways in the silence,
wishing for that, the tape on the picture
gleaming over his head, beginning to
melt at the center and curl at the edges as it
ages. At night, when I put him to bed,
my son holds my hand tight
and says he's sure that kid's all right,
nothing to worry about, he just
hopes he's getting the food he likes,
not just any old food, but the food
he likes the most, the food he is used to.
It's a heartbreaking poem--Olds' son confronting the danger of the world as only a little boy can: with hope and assurance. If you're not familiar with the story, Etan Patz was a six-year-old from SoHo in Lower Manhattan who disappeared on his way to school one morning in 1979. After a massive manhunt, Etan was never found and eventually declared dead. In 2012, as a result of new evidence, a man was arrested and charged with Etan's kidnapping and murder.
Of course, little kids always believe in happily every after. Thus, Olds' son is sure "that kid's all right," even without any evidence. The story of Etan Patz became the stuff of legend, inspiring the creation of National Missing Children's Day in the United States.
All this happened one year after Roz Chast published her first cartoon in The New Yorker, 22 years before the 9-11 attacks, and 35 years before Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? was published. I'm sure, as a New Yorker and former resident of Brooklyn, Chast knew the story of Etan Patz pretty intimately. (I vaguely remember Etan's story in the news when I was a kid.) These days, very few people remember Etan's name, I'm sure. He's become a footnote in Wikipedia.
On the other hand, Roz Chast's Wikipedia page is pretty extensive. She commands large fees for any appearance she makes. (I won't reveal how much of the almost $17,000 NEA grant went directly to Roz, but it was substantial.) Let me just say that, if I could make the same amount of money as Chast for sitting in a one-hour Zoom meeting, I would work exactly one month per year and then spend the rest of my time writing poems on a beach in the Bahamas.
I'm not saying Chast wasn't worth her fee. She was witty and intelligent, a great storyteller. Worth every penny it took to get her to appear. During the event, it felt like I was having a conversation with a close friend or relative. I'm pretty sure the audience felt the same way.
I wrote a poem for tonight about meeting a famous person, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:
On this day in 1965, Neil Simon's play, The Odd Couple, debuted. Write a poem in which two famous people you wouldn't expect to see together interact. The people can be dead, living, or fictional. Think Frida Kahlo having a conversation with Bugs Bunny, or Elvis Presley doing a crossword puzzle with Elvis Costello. Feel free to use any two people or characters one would never expect to see together. Put them in a poem and see what they do.
CONFESSION: Saint Marty may not have followed these rules explicitly.
Riding with Kendrick
by: Martin Achatz
My son educates me about T-Pain,
Denzel Curry, Lil Yachty on our
drives to and from school these days.
I resisted at first, me stuck in the 1980s
with Cyndi Lauper and Simple Minds.
But each day, like a Harvard professor
unraveling details of constitutional law,
my son talks about breathing, hooks,
samples, diss tracks. He is so passionate,
I drive and listen to his lectures the way
I used to listen to my grad school profs
speak about red wheelbarrows and
cold plums. Last night, my son played
"King Kunta" with its pounding bass,
tongue-twisting lyrics. It was 60
degrees out, a warm March night.
We rolled down our car windows,
bounced our heads, ran the game
as Kendrick, sitting in the backseat,
grooved us all the way home under
a bright bullet hole of moon.
No comments:
Post a Comment