First, thanks to everyone who sent us stories and poems (what, no non-fiction?!?) about Elaine’s find, “Bug and Tent.” We read stories about abominable snowmen looking for Dutch prostitutes, shotgun weddings in Irvine, California, criminally-loud snoring, cliff-jumping, and many other entertaining conceits. We might have to have another contest soon because we’d love to read more stories like these!
The winning entry comes from Anna Mendoza, whose Chaucerian parody of a writers’ retreat still has us smiling. Enjoy the read, folks, and if you’re interested in some excellent MFA info, don’t forget to check out Tom Kealey’s MFA Handbook blog.
Bug and Tent
FOUND by Elaine in Amsterdam, The Netherlands
“The Volkswagen has ‘NL’ on the back (The Netherlands) and there seems to be someone running into the tent to avoid being pictured?”
Prologue
Within a sheltered corner of the state
Whose costly programs hopeless authors bait,
Beyond the reach of urban smog and toil
Extends an acre’s worth of rural soil
That’s free of all your jostling city pricks
And houses but three dozen friendly hicks.
Amidst the crowd of ancient Titan trees,
The sun’s gold rays, and sacred hum of bees,
There sits a deep blue lake, of that good sort
Ideal both for barbecue and sport:
Where naked children straddle on the wave
And desperate seniors filthy toilets brave;
Where Mom and Dad leave Gran to watch the goods
While they go sport alone in yonder woods;
Where crows and squirrels feast on human fare
And wasted teens lie snoring here and there;
Where tribes of poets have been known to crash
In vinyl wigwams, spent from writing trash.
In nineteen-eighty-nine, some vagrant tramp
Conceived the notion of a writers’ camp
And thought he’d charge three hundred bucks per head
To spend six nights with neither bath nor bed—
For which so many applicants did vie
That he in stable residence would die.
And now, O Muse of glib and comic verse,
Protect your servant’s mind from that ol’ curse
Called writers’ block, and from exam week stress
That crimps the gushing flow of my address.
The stories which I have but to relate
Are taken from a disappointing date
With haughty authors, in whose compagnie
Were trapped my mentor, my best friend, and me.
A mid-March Sunday, odorous and cool,
Fair supplement to one week off from school!
And what was more, Professor Homer Pope
Fulfilled the greatest of my college hopes:
That is, to join a writerly retreat,
In which two lofty minds were sure to meet
And there would stumble into this life’s path
The Edward Hughes to Anna’s Sylvia Plath!
‘Oh crap,’ said Geoff, ‘not that again. I swear,
I wish there would be none but ladies there.’
To think the both of us had hoped to find
Some genius of the young, attractive kind—
Of all the members of that motley train
Not one was bright, though each was quite insane,
And now I think I’ll have a little fun
In giving their descriptions, one by one.
There was a poet, William K. McGee,
Who spent the workshops lost in reverie.
He’d stare at us with dull, unfocused eyes
And make us feel as trifling as the flies
That roamed in orbits round his matted head;
And during that one minute when I read
A passage from my log, the guy arose
To take a piss, and fell into a doze
On his return—yet no one said a peep
To see the Stanford scholar fast asleep.
Beside him sat a culture-bomber, Belle,
Who said that each of us would go to hell
If we continued buying fancy brands
Of mugs and sneakers shipped from distant lands,
And thought my cousin’s cast-off Baby-G
Meet subject for a drawling homily,
Suggesting for my tortured mindset’s sake
That I find strength to cast it in the lake;
And as she spoke I pictured Shelley’s death,
Whose silver watch stopped short at his last breath,
While mine continued, harmlessly, to run:
It was an hour before the speech was done.
There was a Masters’ student, young and proud,
Who saw himself as far beyond the crowd
Of dabblers like my modest friend and me—
For he could flaunt an undergrad degree!
Whenever Geoff or I read out a line
Of formal verse, and asked if it was fine
In terms of flow of thought, or if the laws
Of rhyme and meter had instilled those flaws
In its intended meaning, Sammy Wong
Was first to have his say on what was wrong,
And it was always both import and rhyme—
In fact we had committed every crime
In Aristotle’s Art of Poesy—
And then he’d take a sip of herbal tea
And rub his chin like some great Eastern sage
Though more or less a year ahead in age.
His older classmate, Marietta Crowe,
Trudged round the campsite rapt in constant woe.
Her three months’ boyfriend left her all forlorn
Two years ago; and though she’d ceased to mourn,
Or so she claimed, she could not help but make
That Harley-stealing, leather-clad young rake
The epitome of each and every work
(In which he seemed to us a thorough jerk,
Or else I fear that it was her intent
To give his deeds a mock heroic bent).
And then that novel writer—wretched dame!—
Yet I’ll refrain from calling her by name,
For she’s a fellow of such high degree
As would inflict Columbia’s curse on me.
At first we felt quite flattered that this pro
Approached us both, and seemed to want to know
What we had learned, who gave us lessons (stuff
That on its own seemed innocent enough)
And yet I found that after I was done
Extolling Homer’s wisdom—as the one
Who taught me that, ‘above all forms of skill,
The rarest merit is sincere goodwill
To those who wield a far from modest lot
Of genius, be it couched in fame or not’—
This good Dame Nose remarked she’d never heard
Of any of our teachers: ‘On my word,’
Said she, ‘They sound like local lights.
Perhaps they’re up-and-coming semi-brights?’
It made my stomach broil, such talk to hear
Regarding those who’d hailed me as their peer
Although I had but little flair to show;
And never knowing them, she’d never know
Their works were packed with intellect and grace…
If only I had slapped her in the face!
There was a man whose name I can’t recall.
In fact I wonder if he read at all
When it came time to share; in those six days
He only spoke a single curious phrase
But every now and then, and this is it—
‘It seems like you can work on that a bit.’
If you should ask him how, he’d shrug and wait
In silence till a bigot took the bait.
At last we come to Terrence Sachs, our host,
Who flitted round the workshop like a ghost;
A mere five minutes would he deign to stay
Before resuming work on his coupé,
A beat-up clunker shipped from some Dutch town
Whose open hatch appeared to gulp him down
As think digestive fumes rose up around
His thrashing form (his legs far off the ground).
‘Forgive my going back and forth,’ said he,
In tones of unrestrained solemnity—
‘I told a friend I’d get this thing to run
As good as new before the week was done.’
But I suppose this prattling has to end;
My audience, I presume, would hate to spend
Another minute lost in overture.
Besides, there weren’t more writers to endure.
Voilà le second lunch, a campfire lit:
At last I thought the group would chill a bit
And share some tales that oughtn’t to be judged,
Though I suspect our dear Dame Nose begrudged
Professor Pope his space in that tight sphere,
For reasons which I doubt I’ll ever hear.
My buddy Geoff had asked Miss Crowe to sing
A campfire ballad—any lively thing
She knew by heart, which made her shed a tear
And flee right through the tent’s unfastned rear.
‘Hey Home-Boy,’ quoth the upstart Sammy Wong,
Though their acquaintance measured one day long,
‘Let’s have a story from that nutty shell,’
To which Sir Stanford smiled, and you could tell
The Nose was holding back a laugh; and yet
Our master paid no heed to any threat
Directed at his truly brilliant mind
Or somewhat balding head, from such unkind
Personae—thus, he gave the kid a nod,
And with the calm expression of a god
Impressed in stone (a look both mild and hard)
He spun the legend of the THRACIAN BARD.
By Anna Mendoza
