Vox Populi
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David Kirby: Significant Pieces of Information
Did you know monkeys peel bananas from the bottom up?
Ever try it that way? It’s easier. Monkeys know this.
People know it, too, or at least they do now, but
they don’t do it. People tend to be set in their ways
unless they’re scientists, who can’t afford to be set in
their ways, otherwise no grants, no fancy labs
gleaming with chrome and formica, no tenure.
“You have to prove everything,” says Dr. Carlo
Messina of the University of Pennsylvania vet school,
“that’s how science works.” Dr. Messina is talking
about an experiment where cats sniff cotton swabs
containing secretions either from their owners
or strangers and during which the cats spend far more time
sniffing the samples from the strangers. Cats aren’t dumbasses,
you know. So they don’t have 401(k)s or smartphones—
so what? They can still recognize their owners’ scents
and will thus spend more time exploring ones they’ve
never smelled before, which might seem like common sense,
says the professor, but is actually “a significant piece
of information.” But isn’t every piece of information
significant? Huh? In Botswana, cows were being attacked
by lions, but since lions attack by ambush and rely on
the element of surprise to sneak up on their prey,
researchers painted big pairs of eyes on the haunches
of some of the cows and found they were attacked
much less—if the lions think the cows have spotted them,
they back off. Fair enough, but on the other hand,
there was this experiment where teams consisting
of CEOs, lawyers, business-school students, kindergartners,
architects, and engineers were given twenty sticks
of spaghetti, a meter of masking tape, a meter of string,
and a marshmallow and told to build the tallest tower
they could on a tabletop in eighteen minutes,
and the tower had to stand motionless for three seconds
after it was finished. The average tower height
was twenty inches. The CEOs did a little better
than that, the lawyers much worse. The shortest towers
were those of the business students. The kindergartners did
a bit better than the CEOS and at least two and a half
times better than the B-schoolers. The architects
and engineers did best overall, but researchers said that
the kindergartners made the most interesting-looking sculptures.
Why? Because they didn’t waste time talking about
what to do; they just jumped in and did it. Did you know
that adjectives must be listed in this order: opinion,
size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose? So you
wouldn’t say “silver old big bridge” but “big old
silver bridge,” to which you might respond, “Yeah, but how
am I supposed to remember all that?” the answer to which
is you don’t have to, because native speakers grow up
knowing how to do that without thinking about it.
It’s just one of the things we know. Everybody knows it.
~~~~
Copyright 2025 David Kirby
David Kirby is the Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of English at Florida State University. He has received many honors for his work, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His many books include The Winter Dance Party: Poems, 1983–2023 (LSU, 2024).
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Yes! delightful and human— the combination we need more of these days— and as always, thank you…
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Some artists, and David is one, delight us and enlighten us at the same time. What a gift he has.
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Same here: I see David’s name mentioned and I know I’ll read the poem all the way down to the last line. Barbara’s poems too. I just returned from the kitchen where I tried to peel a banana from the opposite side of where the stem is. Yeah…no. Just as awkward, I must say. But then I have arthritic hands. (Don’t you love the word “awkward”? It looks and is pronounced awkwardly too, don’t you agree?) Thanks for that poem, David. And I loved that “The kindergartners did a bit better than the CEOS”!
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‘Awkward’ always looks like ‘aardvark’ to me. Go figure.
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True all the way through. Go kindergartners!
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Go kindergarteners!
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This poem need to be written. There is just one thing that I can’t help but mention: monkeys peel a banana from the top down. “Instead of struggling with the stem end and often squeezing the fruit, monkeys have a much smarter method. The trick is to hold the banana like a holder, not trying to open it from the bottom. The top is where the magic happens!”
Still LOVE the poem!
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oops, I just thought it depends on what one calls bottom or top 🙂
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HA! I love the ancient wisdom of monkeys. Much to learn from them.
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I love the playfulness of his informational array. And the way Kirby ends the poem with the wry line: Everybody knows it. I didn’t know it. Now, kinda do.
The imaginative leaps of David Kirby prove poetry still has life these days. Lovely imaginative sniffing possibilities for those of us who hang around poems.
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Kirby’s poems are wise and witty. I laugh at his jokes as I learn from them.
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I. ALWAYS love to see this man’s poetry. It makes me laugh (like his wife’s) but there’s also always something mordant informing it. And you learn stuff! I will boldly try, e.g., to peel my next banana from below!Sent from my iPhone
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I love David’s poems. It’s an honor and a pleasure to include them here.
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What delight David! A poem just like you, always so, and why wouldn’t it be? We see your name and its just one of the things we know.
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Oh this response nails it! I saw the author’s name and knew I wanted to read the poem. And it totally started my day with a wry smile.
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