Art history matters. New Master’s degrees
Lead to dull innovation in poetry. Please
Try to write us a poem where meaning is plain
And no MFA patriarch needs to explain.
a statue carved by Bernini/a plate of eggs painted by Velázquez
Jane, dear Jane, you’re a porcelain idol.
The time has arrived for your verse to unbridle
Itself and reveal some slight traces of life;
We know you are smart, but that dull butter-knife
Of your poetry, smearing the references ’round
Is like Sylvia Plath/Gertrude Stein/Ezra Pound…
personal pan pizza with unlimited free toppings
Those weird sudden line breaks confuse us, in fact,
And the rarefied dishes you name-drop get cracked
On the floor of your poetry, leaving us shards,
Risking splinters for muses and mystified bards.
my arm breaks off like the shell/of a freshly-filled cannoli
You deadpan in monotone, stunningly brave,
But your tortuous verses go straight to the grave.
Academic obscurantists murmur and nod
As they lower the corpse of your work in the sod…
carelessly thrown baby/a designer toilet cistern
You ought to re-frame and then tighten your lines,
So replete with Old Masters and euro-trash wines:
(…weirdly-named liqueurs in a Rococo palais)
Why would you not, then, aspire to coherence,
Dismissing the need for white male interference?
Your verses cry out for some fatherly guidance
To try and make sense of your history of silence.
Apr 7, 2025
Apr 7, 2025 at 6:22 PM UTC
Art history matters. New Master’s degrees
Lead to dull innovation in poetry. Please
Try to write us a poem where meaning is plain
And no MFA patriarch needs to explain.
a statue carved by Bernini/a plate of eggs painted by Velázquez
Jane, dear Jane, you’re a porcelain idol.
The time has arrived for your verse to unbridle
Itself and reveal some slight traces of life;
We know you are smart, but that dull butter-knife
Of your poetry, smearing the references ’round
Is like Sylvia Plath/Gertrude Stein/Ezra Pound…
personal pan pizza with unlimited free toppings
Those weird sudden line breaks confuse us, in fact,
And the rarefied dishes you name-drop get cracked
On the floor of your poetry, leaving us shards,
Risking splinters for muses and mystified bards.
my arm breaks off like the shell/of a freshly-filled cannoli
You deadpan in monotone, stunningly brave,
But your tortuous verses go straight to the grave.
Academic obscurantists murmur and nod
As they lower the corpse of your work in the sod…
carelessly thrown baby/a designer toilet cistern
You ought to re-frame and then tighten your lines,
So replete with Old Masters and euro-trash wines:
(…weirdly-named liqueurs in a Rococo palais)
Why would you not, then, aspire to coherence,
Dismissing the need for white male interference?
Your verses cry out for some fatherly guidance
To try and make sense of your history of silence.
Jane Yeh’s "Why I Am Not a Sculpture" has a […] sense of playfulness, as she both compares herself to a sculpture and uses a series of rather silly and elaborate similes, along with references to dubious historical “facts.” Today, we challenge you to write a similar kind of self-portrait poem, in which you explain why you are not a particular piece of art (a symphony, a figurine, a ballet, a sonnet)
