The Poet Ridiculed by Hysterical Academics

By W. D. Snodgrass 1926–2009

Is it, then, your opinion

Women are putty in your hands?

Is this the face to launch upon

A thousand one night stands?

First, please, would you be so kind

As to define your contribution

To modern verse, the Western mind

And human institutions?

Where, where is the long, flowing hair,

The velvet suit, the broad bow tie;

Where is the other-worldly air,

Where the abstracted eye?

Describe the influence on your verse

Of Oscar Mudwarp’s mighty line,

The theories of Susan Schmersch

Or the spondee’s decline.

You’ve labored to present us with

This mouse-sized volume; shall this equal

The epic glories of Joe Smith?

He’s just brought out a sequel.

Where are the beard, the bongo drums,

Tattered T-shirt and grubby sandals,

As who, released from Iowa, comes

To tell of wondrous scandals?

Have you subversive, out of date,

Or controversial ideas?

And can you really pull your weight

Among such minds as these?

Ah, what avails the tenure race,

Ah, what the Ph.D.,

When all departments have a place

For nincompoops like thee?

W.D. Snodgrass, “The Poet Ridiculed by Hysterical Academics” from Selected Poems, 1957-1987 (New York: Soho Press, 1987). Copyright © 1987 by W.D. Snodgrass. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

Source: Selected Poems 1957-1987 (1987)

Biography

W. D. Snodgrass is often credited with being one of the founding members of the "confessional" school of poetry, even though he dislikes the term confessional and does not regard his work as such. Nevertheless, his Pulitzer Prize-winning first collection, Heart's Needle, has had a tremendous impact on that particular facet of contemporary poetry. "Like other confessional poets, Snodgrass is at pains to reveal the repressed, . . .

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