My Fair Lazy - Jen Lancaster [97]
“No!” I exclaim.
“Take a listen—‘Because I could not stop for death/He kindly stopped for me/The carriage held for just ourselves/And Immortality.’ ”
“That is AWESOME! Did she do that on purpose?”
“She wrote in running meter, so her work lends itself to songs with the same beats. Lots of her poems work with the theme to Gilligan’s Island, too.”
I let that sink in for a minute. Actually, that’s not true. I silently sing those lines, Gilligan-style. “Cool as that may be, I’m giving this part of the project one more afternoon to find something I love before I officially give myself a pass.”
Stacey seems a bit smug as we pull up the parking ramp at Whole Foods. “You’ll find something.”
Pfft. Not bloody likely.
Well, hell.
Stacey was right. Again.
Turns out there’s a whole genre of poetry I like . . . and some of it doesn’t even rhyme!
I started reading Maya Angelou, and hers are the first words that actually reached up from the page and said, “Hey! Pay attention!” From Maya Angelou, I moved on to Gwendolyn Brooks. Those women can give entire books’ worth of a story in twenty lines.
The site I used to research them suggested I’d like Robert Hayden, too, and damn if I’m not moved by his work. And Langston Hughes? His “Let America Be America Again” poem gives me chills, even though it paints a picture of this country that I hate to think could be true. I probably connect more with these poets now that I have a little background in the blues. There are common rhythms and themes between their work and the lyrics I’ve heard.
I’m not yet sure how to articulate why their poems speak to me, and I’m completely green when it comes to figuring out various interpretations. But I know now that poetry is capable of holding my interest, and I want to learn more.
I want to get some of their books, but . . . I probably won’t read their stuff by the pool at my club. Somehow that seems to go against the spirit of what they’ve written.
By the way, if anyone wants to beat up Maya Angelou for her lunch money? They’re going to have to go through me first.
ALTGELD SHRUGGED TWITTER:
Expert: Most plastic surgeries are performed on the middle & lower-middle classes. Me: Duh, how else are they going to get on Rock of Love?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Have Fork, Will Travel
“Hey, you like cheese.”
I say this to the back of Fletch’s head, prompting him to look up from his mammoth plastic storage bin of cords. He recently got a new desk186 and has been busy rearranging his office to accommodate it. Somehow in moving things, he’s unearthed a number of yet-to-be-homed power cords and computer cables. He carefully winds each one in on itself and secures it with a zip tie so he won’t find it in a Christmas-tree-light-string snarl when he needs it. And yet I’d be willing to wager all the money in my purse—again, about eight dollars—that he will never, ever need it because we have no powerless appliances and ten thousand spare cables. The dove gray one he’s oh so lovingly laying to rest right now probably belongs to the dot-matrix printer we owned in 1996187. Or maybe an Atari Pong console.
Cautiously, he replies, “I do like cheese. But if you’re hinting at another one of your ‘Let’s have cheese for dinner!’ ideas, count me out. That’s not a balanced diet.”
“Pfft, it’s totally balanced if you have grapes, olives, and crackers. Anyway, that’s not my point. I signed up for a class on wine-and-cheese pairing tomorrow night, and I want you to come with me.”
I’ve done an awful lot of work on my Jenaissance so far, but most of what I’ve done has been with Stacey or Gina or my college roommate Joanna. This project isn’t driving us apart, but not much of it’s brought us together. Now that’s about to change.
His expression is vaguely stricken. “Wouldn’t you rather take Stacey?”
I shake my head vehemently. “Stacey already knows how to pair stuff. Don’t you remember when she told us about her ‘cheesemonger,’ and I kept