Zeno
05-21-2003, 03:22 AM
The Academy of American Poets lovingly sped a note my way soliciting some money for membership. This paltry group of mangy hacks and sentimental sycophants want support for poetry because:
“…you will become an important financial patron of this great national tradition—and an art form which, without your help, cannot be self-sustaining.”
The good news is that it cannot be “self-sustaining” though an explanation for this phenomenon was not included in the sobbing note they send me.
Also included in the blubbering blurb was this gem (a quote from Marie Bullock, the founder):
‘Upon enrolling in Columbia University, she was outraged to find that “poets I had looked forward to meeting in class were not given the time off from such jobs as soda-fountain jerk – or salesmen in a clothing store – to come and read.” ‘
The implications of the above quote are too nauseating to explore.
This lurching, lachrymose letter left me limp. Other overwrought themes were employed to garner support including stabs about the World Trade Center/September Eleventh Tragedies.
Also included was a special note, “From the Desk of: Tree Swenson, Executive Director.”
On the basis of the name alone, this individual should be hanging from the Golden Gate Bridge by a piano wire, slowly twisting in the fog, food for birds, bugs and flies.
I will not be joining.
I’m off to read some Juvenal.
-Zeno
“…you will become an important financial patron of this great national tradition—and an art form which, without your help, cannot be self-sustaining.”
The good news is that it cannot be “self-sustaining” though an explanation for this phenomenon was not included in the sobbing note they send me.
Also included in the blubbering blurb was this gem (a quote from Marie Bullock, the founder):
‘Upon enrolling in Columbia University, she was outraged to find that “poets I had looked forward to meeting in class were not given the time off from such jobs as soda-fountain jerk – or salesmen in a clothing store – to come and read.” ‘
The implications of the above quote are too nauseating to explore.
This lurching, lachrymose letter left me limp. Other overwrought themes were employed to garner support including stabs about the World Trade Center/September Eleventh Tragedies.
Also included was a special note, “From the Desk of: Tree Swenson, Executive Director.”
On the basis of the name alone, this individual should be hanging from the Golden Gate Bridge by a piano wire, slowly twisting in the fog, food for birds, bugs and flies.
I will not be joining.
I’m off to read some Juvenal.
-Zeno