Addressing Shakespeare After Teaching Sonnet 18 to English 102
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Oh Will, they have no problem with line one,
but then it’s harder work to make them see
that what begins as straight comparison
develops into rich analogy.
At some point in the lecture, I digress
into your loves: Dark Lady and Fair Youth
which often leads, I’ll happily confess,
to whether “truth in poetry” is truth.
But then we turn, as sonnets have to do,
and parse the couplet: pithy and sublime
and if your loved one’s living thanks to you,
preserved by your Elizabethan rhyme.
I say, Of course. Because you wrote this, Will
and we have breath and eyes to read it still.
Words with Friends Chat Purity
The chatbot uses asterisks and blurs
the words its algorithm finds too rude,
and by the frequency that this occurs
it seems as though the coder was a prude.
We know s-star-star-t is always shit
and s-star-star-y just sounds coy and lame
It’s somewhat silly when you think of it
policing words inside a crossword game.
But played by nerds for whom words are a passion
the challenge is to circumvent those rules
by using words that may not be in fashion
but mean the right thing. Words are only tools.
And that’s why, when one feels like being bad,
one types, you’re luscious, can we get skyclad?
Please Check All That Apply
You sleep better…
when Trump is not President
in your childhood bedroom
in a hammock in New Jersey
if you take your makeup off
naked as a tree frog
after drinking wine
when the world is not on fire
with your feet outside the bedclothes
with a ceiling fan
under the open sky
when you sleep alone
with a scented candle burning
within the sound of the ocean
after really good sex
if you know your children are safe
My Life as a Serving Wench of the Round Table
Everyone seems to think those knights were sainted.
I have to say I didn’t see much sign
and I was, how to put it, well-acquainted,
with quite a few of them. I served their wine.
After a jug or two they would get loud
and try to feel me up. Gawain was cute—
I let him have me right before he vowed
off women. Gareth acted like a brute
and tried to force me once but I got clear.
Percival was kinky, so was Kay.
Lancelot would call me Guinevere.
I did love Galahad, but he was gay.
King Arthur, though a noble man and kind,
was, to all their faults, completely blind.
My Life as a Docta Puella
A poet is in love with me. He writes
about my soft skin and my silken hair
then rages that I spend so many nights
with other men. It’s sweet of him to care.
He’s handsome, young, and pretty good in bed
plus I like hearing him declaim his verse,
but poetry, alas, won’t buy me bread
or put denarii inside my purse.
I have to ply my trade with rich old men
who paw me and have problems getting hard,
and when I’m with my poet once again
he’s sulky as a child and on his guard.
I wish he were a wealthy entrepreneur.
I didn’t study Plato to stay poor.
What I’m Always Saying to My Students
I’m not sure what the epigraph is for.
This lead-in would work better if inferred—
since, as I often tell you, less is more.
The second stanza is a bit obscure.
Who is the “they”? That part’s a little blurred
and what’s this ostrich in the poem for?
My prompt? Oh then it’s easy to ignore.
This poem should be shorter by a third,
since, as I tend to mention, less is more.
That rhyme is forced; the rhythm there is poor.
This sentence here is verging on absurd—
I think you’ve overworked the metaphor.
This line’s a mouthful—what’s a blastospore?
You ought to find a better—shorter?—word,
since as I’m fond of saying, less is more.
Good work, though. Lovely! Hmm…I don’t adore
the title. “Anger”’s such an abstract word…
The last two lines must go—or maybe four?
You know I’m always saying, less is more.
Melania’s TV
“Trump Threw Tantrum After Spotting Melania’s TV Tuned To CNN”
—Newsweek, 7/25/18
The problem is I’m sometimes sick of Fox—
the servile flattery and helmet hair
that makes me feel I’m living in a box
where everyone’s been brainwashed. And I care
about the people—what they think of me,
so when alone I switch to CNN.
It’s not all bad. They like my style, and see
I’m trying to be good and kind, but then
I can’t avoid things like those polls that say
how many people are appalled by him,
Republicans who jump ship every day.
No wonder that my smile is wearing thin.
I’m brittle as a woman made of chalk.
I put red lipstick on. We do not talk.
Not a Sonnet
This is not a sonnet babe, you said.
There’s too much speech; it makes it hard to see
the rhymes.—There’s too much football in your head,
I answered. Look! It rhymes abab.
Aren’t all sonnets meant to be about
romance? you said. This isn’t, so it’s not
a sonnet.—You’re in it, I pointed out,
and we’re in love. You said, Oh, I forgot.
It is a sonnet. Watch how it just turned
to heartbreak in the sestet. The next line
suggests, in writing it, I should have learned
our love is doomed—you’re far too philistine.
Well, you’re a geek, you said, but I would miss you.
And that is where I stopped the verse to kiss you.
“My Life as a Serving Wench of the Round Table” and “My Life as a Docta Puella” were published in Evans’s collection Sisters and Courtesans. “Melania’s TV” first appeared in Evans’s chapbook The Unacknowledged Legislator. A similar version of “Not a Sonnet” ran in Swimming.