David Trinidad

The selection below is from Phoebe 2002: An Essay in Verse (written in collaboration with Jeffery Conway and Lynn Crosbie, and based on the movie All About Eve). David Trinidad will be reading at St. Mark's Church in New York City on Wednesday, November 5.

THE KINGDOM OF THE DEAD

And now, Calliope, eldest and most distinguished
of the nine Muses, Fair Voiced and crowned
in gold, holding your stylus and scroll, O Muse
of long narrative poems recounting actions, travels,
adventures, and heroic episodes written in a high style
(with ennobled diction, for example), Muse of clever,
campy, and indulgent mock-epics that--like the
ENERGIZER BUNNY, symbol of longevity, perseverance
and determination--keep going and going and going . . .
White-armed Calliope, halt your well-made chariot here, unroll
your timeless papyrus, and let resentment fuel now my song;
let destruction flash upon my glittering steel, while
round my brow encrimsoned laurels wave, and
o'er me shrilly shrieks the demon of the grave;
guide, with eloquence and precision, this poison pen . . .

Let me tell my tale, an odyssey during which I battled
four famous poets, mythological creatures who brandished,
in the name of Poesy, monstrous egos and abominable characters,
whose lack of generosity showed me that success does not
necessarily engender grace. Let me use not their names, but
you will know who I mean, O Immortal One, and inscribe them
in blazing letters in Hades's red-hot Book of the Damned.

The first was a reed-thin and sour-faced prize-winner,
whom I met at a cocktail party near UCLA, the land of the
Lotus-eaters, in the mid-eighties. Sycophants surrounded the
poetess, intoxicated by her honey-sweet fruit. I too was affected,
a fumbling young fan (reverent, no Eve) who had grazed on her
lotus poems while in college. I asked her to sign her books, tried
to converse with her. Indifferent, she turned her back to gossip
with those who, dreamy and languid, had lost all thought of home.

"I [felt] like a lowlife in hell"

Thankfully

her

rudeness broke the spell of her enchanting flowers and I was able to continue on my voyage.

I reached the island of Manhattan, inhabited by the high
and mighty Cyclops, lawless brutes who trust so to the
everlasting gods they never plant with their own hands
or plow the soil. There I encountered Polyphemus,
a ruthless award-monger, priestess of PC (i.e., nothing),
who as I stood talking with Dennis Cooper at a Lower East Side
reading, pushed me out of the way to fawn over him. When
Dennis introduced me to her, she frowned and looked down
her nose. One huge eye glared from the center of her forehead.
My heart shook, terrified by her ugliness. I had to stab
an olive stake straight into the monster's eye
in order to get away.

Next I came upon Aeolus, King of the Winds, an over-prized
and shamelessly prolific dipsomaniac, who, at a party for Jimmy
Schuyler, staggered up to me and said, "I haven't liked anything
you've written since your first book." His words struck like
a sudden squall. Still new in New York, I was humiliated
when those who overheard gasped and began chattering
about what he had said. When I told Jimmy about it, all
he said was, "Well, Aeolus was drunk." Bad mom. Bad mom.
No favoring wind in sight.

I ended up at an Academy do, where the nymph Circe,
a hair-tossing and bangled charlatan, was turning male
MFA students into swine with her "bewitching" songs.
A friend dragged me across the room to introduce me to her.
She extended a limp, queenly hand, like Margo in the dressing room
when Karen presents Eve. You may kiss my ring. I felt ill, wandered
outside, down a gray midtown street. It was humid, about to storm.
My mother was dying in California.

"It's not enough to have talent, you also have to have character."

-Carol Rossen, DVD commentary, The Hustler

And let us not forget:

The poet-turned-novelist who pitches his new manuscript to an editor at the funeral of Cookie Mueller.

The poet who shows up at a party for Anne Waldman in L.A. and is shocked that Waldman has never heard of her. "But I'm the grande dame of the Los Angeles poetry scene," she says.

The female poet who marries not one but two homosexuals, then writes poems advocating the murder of "men who love other men."

The failed-poet-cum-novelist-cum-MFA-poetry-instructor who gives A's to everyone in her workshop except the four openly gay and lesbian students. The following semester, she tells the incoming class: "Stay away from Confessional poems, as Confessionalism has been running rampant on this campus for two years."*

The famous beat poet who only responds favorably to student poems that mirror his own style, and who bullies a female student until she runs crying from the room.

The secondary beat poet who drunkenly boasts: "Once Allen dies, I'm gonna be Numero Uno!"

The Pulitzer-winner who says about one of his closest friends, another Pulitzer-winner: "Yes, but he didn't go to Harvard."

The Pulitzer-winner who will only acknowledge other Pulitzer-winners at a post-reading dinner.

The wannabe writer who moves to a new city and assumes the identity of a poet he knew in college. He keeps up the ruse for several years, even publishing the poet's work while pretending to be him, before he is exposed. Years later, the scandal forgotten, he becomes the host of a radio book show.

The highbrow poetry editor who rejects a certain manuscript thusly: "Why are you bothering me with this crap?" The manuscript goes on to be published by a smaller press and is named a finalist for a major prize "for the most outstanding book of poems published in the United States."

A Pulitzer-winner on an underrated contemporary: "If only I'd gotten hold of him when he was young . . . I could have made him a good poet."

An FSG poet on the above poet: "No one's going to care about him when he's dead."

The young New York poet who, when asked by another young poet how to go about publishing poems, says: "Schmooze editors at cocktail parties."

Shame on the age and on its principles!

*Curiously, one of said failed-poet-cum-novelist-cum-MFA-poetry-instructor's books bears a blurb by Queen of Confession Anne Sexton: "[name blacked out] writes!"

Tim Dlugos on a mediocre "power poet": "His ruthless climb to the middle."

Fast Rising Poet

(after Anne Waldman)

I'm a disrespectful poet
I'm a cynical poet
I'm an ambitious poet
I'm an arrogant poet
I'm a pretentious poet
I'm a flamboyant poet
I'm a hair-tossing poet
I'm a social climbing poet
I'm a cutthroat poet
I'm an experimental poet
I'm a New Yorker poet
I'm a 92nd Street Y poet
I'm a snide poet
I'm an ungrateful poet
I'm a backstabbing poet

I'm a rude poet
I'm a pushy poet
I'm a smug poet
I'm a desperate-for-attention poet
I'm a corrupt poet
I'm a caustic poet
I'm a nasty when I'm drunk poet

I'M A GIMME WHAT YOU HAVE POET

I'm a self-important poet
I'm the self-serving poet
I'm the poet self-concerned, the self-centered poet
the egotistic poet, the poet narcissistic
the selfish poet
the politically correct poet
the careerist poet
the poet self-absorbed, the poet under thirty
the elliptical poet, the performance poet
the artist dreaming of power & prestige

I'm the bitter poet
I'm the entitled poet
I'm the tetchy poet
I'm the Yaddo poet
I'm the grandiose poet
I'm the smirking poet
I'm the cranky poet
I'm the poet with a Guggenheim
I'm the poet with an MFA
I'm the condescending poet
I'm the scheming poet
I'm the poet ingratiating
I'm the impudent poet
I'm the petty poet
I'm the conceited poet
I'm the poet with connections
I'm the poet with a first book prize

I'm a fast rising poet

editors that publish
audiences that applaud
judges that can give me awards . . .

"The grabbing hands
Grab all they can
All for themselves
After all"

-Depeche Mode