Vox Populi
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Joshua McKinney: World Enough
At the department meeting,
I am sitting, back to the wall,
in the back corner of the room,
next to the antique pencil-sharpener
bolted to the wall, its little crank
hanging down at six o’clock,
the hour it has tolled for years.
I am trying to remember Marvell’s mistress,
but the lines are coy, coming
to me in pieces, which is, I suppose,
no crime. And there is, after all,
the assistance of rhyme. Now
I find that I am left complaining
by the “tide of Humber,” and I wonder
how does it go from there?
Someone is making a motion
to make a motion on a previous
motion, concerning the minutes
from the last meeting, those precious
minutes forever lost, and, ah, yes,
here comes time’s wingéd chariot,
with that memorable accented suffix,
interrupted by a cold blast of horns and
motors from the street outside. The Dean
is making a case for cancelling
a poetry class with only twenty-five students.
I suppose I am expected to object,
but the willing soul expires, no,
wait, transpires, and I would rather
this moment devour than languish
in the slow-chapped power
of this latest scheme: Tell us, in ten words
or less, why poetry is important,
and we will use it in a student recruitment
campaign on Twitter. I have lost
my youthful hue, it’s true, yet
I can still seize these lines from
some recess of my brain, and find
sport amid these monthly deserts
of vast eternity, where I must tear
my pleasure through the iron gates
of budgetary strife. And now I hear
a blesséd movement to adjourn,
and rise to go, reminded yet again,
of the importance of poetry.
~
~~~~
Copyright 2024 Joshua McKinney. Published in Sad Animal (Gunpowder Press 2024).
Joshua McKinney’s fifth book of poetry, Sad Animal (Gunpowder Press, 2024), was the recipient of the John Ridland Poetry Prize. His work has appeared in such journals as Boulevard, Denver Quarterly, Kenyon Review, New American Writing, and many others. He is co-editor of the online ecopoetics journal, Clade Song.
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What a true treasure and pleasure this poem is!
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It’s a very clever sendup of faculty meetings!
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Been there way too many times. My successor got into trouble for playing video games at commitee meetings, while sitting at a table surrounded by the others. We needed a parliamentarian to decide whether the motion to make a motion to make a motion, needed a second for each part. Someone moved to table the motion. All poetry, by then, was driven into a business prose corner.
I once chaired a records retention committee for a statewide organization, before Zoom, so members drove in from all over the state to decide what to keep or toss. In the end, the finished policy in hand, I presented it to the Board, they approved it, so I left it with them. A year later, after I had retired, I received an email from their office manager, saying they had lost the records retention policy, and did I happen to have saved a copy. I told them the committee was so glad to be free of the thing after giving it to the board, so sorry. Meeting adjourned.
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Hahahaha. Thanks, Jim. At the university where I used to teach, I was dropped from the invite list for department meetings for making fun of the discussions.
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I have great trouble at meetings and discussions, especially when everyone takes themselves to very seriously, and especially when the intellectuals are dissecting the stuff others have created and they can’t. Then they weigh in and talk to impress each other. LOVE the poem.
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The poem is a clever send-up of academic meetings.
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I am 12 years retired. Loved my premed students, hated meetings ( avoided most), love this poem.
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A brilliant satiric poem, Josh!
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Too many of these meetings everywhere lately, but, yes, poetry offers solace. Thanks to Joshua.
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Joshua is a serious poetic force to be reckoned with!
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I lost my job on a supervisory board (of 3), voted out by my “peers” after having served 40 years in that capacity. They put a developer I’ve never even met much less known in my place, and after the election surprise, meeting still going on, I got up and walked out, haven’t been back. I would have stayed and fought had it been about poetry. This is to say I understand and give this poem my vote of “Aye!” I too am eminently grateful for the “Golden Chariot,” for just this reason!
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Thanks, Sean. I’ve sat on many boards and committees. I’ve never enjoyed the work, but I suppose they are necessary in order to run an organization…
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This board managed resources such as water and drainage of land, with implications entirely into the future. Our land is squarely in the middle of all this and thus my “say” was taken (I say stolen) away. Still angry. Read “Our Rivers are Hiding,” in “Portals.”
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