sixteen poets

k___ felt fortunate to obtain their position as an unpaid intern in the cultural affairs office of the empress, but was surprised to discover how small the office was. small, that is, as far as being staffed. the physical office itself was spacious, airy, and comfortable, with large windows providing a splendid panoramic view of the much maligned capital, which from a height of fifty-two stories looked quite civilized. besides k____, the staff consisted of the director, the elderly baroness b——————, who , k____ was told, only showed up at the office every three months, as she was in the habit of doing so from the days when she received her quarterly salary by check, although of course that was no longer necessary. k____ could look forward to being taken to lunch by the baroness on these occasions. k____ was also told that their direct predecessor had had a secretary, to type letters and open the mail, but that this position, for obvious reasons, had been eliminated. instructions for such duties as k____ might have to perform would be communicated to them on their personal phone, either by the baroness or by the baroness’s direct superior, the minister of the interior or one of his minions. for the first ten days of their employment, k— had nothing to do, and no one to check on them to see if they were doing it. nobody said anything to them about “working from home” and they had no desire to spend the days in their little apartment , so they happily showed up at the office, where they read the novels of elizabeth gaskell and george sand, and in the mornings, pondered what to have for lunch. it had been decided to appoint a poet laureate of the empire, and k____ was instructed to draw up a list of sixteen diverse candidates from which the empress would choose one. happy to justify their existence at last, k___ fell to their task and after two days of intensive research on theirphone came up with the following list: *n alexander gray writes poems about poetry , about what it means to be a poet, and poems about other, mostly famous, poets betty jones writes poems about herself, about her life and her interactions with other people christopher collingwood writes poems about his day to day life doreen weatherby writes poems about nature - the sky, trees, flowers, sun, moon, etc eleanor rapunzel writes poems about the cruelty and injustice of human life robin hood writes poems about the cruelty and injustice of all life george willoughby writes poems that rhyme henry brown junior selects words randomly from an unabridged dictionary and pastes them together to form poems albert emworth writes poems with as few words as possible jennifer robinson lodge writes haiku, always in the 5 - 7 - 5 syllable pattern kate j smith writes poems, mostly rhymed, about her children and grandchildren lily marsh godfrey writes poems about being a woman laurel abercrombie writes poems about her family tree, stretching back centuries nancy dark writes poems abut being herself oliver walker iii writes poems celebrating american history and christian family values paul bunyan is writing an epic poem about the history of the universe and the human race rather pleased with the. results and with theirself, k___ sent the list to the empress’s representative. the reaction was swift.