En Garde, Bard!

Only one letter separates wordplay from swordplay

(Eric Shansby)

As you know, this month finds America at an ideological crossroads, and on the cusp of a major transfer of power. Yes, we have a new poet laureate.

This year's selection was particularly significant because the new poet laureate, unlike the old poet laureate, has no umlaut in his name. This is a hopeful sign. An umlaut is arrogant. It says, "My name is beyond you, you unsophisticated American clodhopper. You can try to pronounce it if you wish, but your feeble effort will only amuse me, the way it amuses me when little children say 'bafroom.' "

Critics contend that I have had a chip on my shoulder about poets laureate ever since the last one, Louise Gluck [umlaut over the "u"] (pronounced "Gleàuchghûñczhòghczhczê"), declined my request for an interview and got savaged in this column. What nonsense. The new poet laureate -- Ted Kooser -- has a much better name. So, to show I have nothing against poets laureate, I decided that I would phone him, invite him to write a dueling poem with me, and, when he declined, savage him in this column.

My plan went perfectly until, alas, he agreed.

It was too late. I couldn't back out.

The deal was that I would write the first stanza, he would write the second, and so forth, and that we had to build on what the other had previously written. Ted Kooser is a Nebraskan whose poetry has been said to reflect the beauty of the heartland and the dignity of the simple man. I decided my only hope lay in making him so angry he would lose his ordinarily formidable control:

His fingers soiled, a farmer toiled to fill with food our bowls,

With verve he hoed, and then he sowed while squatting on his haunches.

Farm life's a poem (he thought, back home) to nourish hungry souls,

But he was a hick, 'n' so just ate a chicken, swilled beer and fell unconscious.

O columnist, upon whose frowning pate that green sun visor perches,

Within whose bottom drawer that fabled bourbon bottle stands,

While through your opening line that misplaced preposition lurches,

One wonders, could you have too much time on your hands?