[1344] Please Fire Me

Guest poem sent in by Katherine Woolfitt <kwoolfitt@>

Here comes another alpha male,
and all the other alphas
are snorting and pawing,
kicking up puffs of acrid dust

while the silly little hens
clatter back and forth
on quivering claws and raise
a titter about the fuss.

Here comes another alpha male--
a man's man, a dealmaker,
holds tanks of liquor,
charms them pantsless at lunch:

I've never been sicker.
Do I have to stare into his eyes
and sympathize? If I want my job
I do. Well I think I'm through

with the working world,
through with warming eggs
and being Zenlike in my detachment
from all things Ego.

I'd like to go
somewhere else entirely,
and I don't mean
Europe.

	-- Deborah Garrison

I've been quite behind on reading Minstrels, and I just today got to the
math poems of late July.  They reminded me of graduate school & what it's
like to do philosophy professionally, which in turn reminded me of one of
the more unpleasant aspects of analytic research, viz. the all-too-frequent
sexism.  And that in turn reminded me of this poem by Deborah Garrison (who I
think hasn't appeared on the list yet?) that I've always liked, for
capturing exactly what it's like to deal with this sort of thing.

Katherine

[Martin adds]

Perfect ending (I do love those) - beautifully timed, and eliciting almost
unbidden that audible "ah" of surprise and gratification. I wasn't really
getting into the poem until the last stanza, but that pulled it all together
for me. (I wonder if there's a deliberate reference to Cummings's "listen:
there's a hell of a good universe next door; let's go", but either way, it's
fully as satisfying a line).

[Links]
  Brief biography and some poems:
    http://www.pbs.org/wnet/foolingwithwords/t_txtgarrison.html

  Academy of American Poets page:
    http://www.poets.org/poets/poets.cfm?prmID=594

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