I've been busy acclimating to a sudden influx of work and not able to tend to the newsletter as I’d like. So I’m giving you (what I hope is) a little treat: This is a post I wrote last October, which previously lived only behind the paywall. This is not safe for work or children, in case you were, I don’t know, going to do an impromptu dramatic reading during a conference call or family road trip. Enjoy!
On Friday I went to a poetry reading with my friend Jennifer. My other friend Krista was reading, which Jennifer used as a ploy to get me to go: Jennifer knows I dislike effort, and “the outside,” but I like Krista even more than I dislike these things. So off I went.
The poetry reading was a two-parter: the first part was Krista and her writing partner, who collaborated on a book of poems, and the second was the main event, a poet named Rozanne. I could go on and on about my friend’s poetry, which was tremendous, but what I really want to talk about is a line of Rozanne’s poetry. One single line. This line will puzzle and haunt me for the rest of my days. I debated whether or not to write about it here, because it is decidedly not safe for work, but we’re all grown-ups here, right? No children reading? Excellent.
But first I want to tell you about Nina. The reading was surprisingly packed, so we had to sit at a crowded table with a group of people we didn’t know. Nina introduced herself as soon we sat down, with an air of “Ah, thank god you’re here, it’s time for you to get to know me.” Small and birdlike, wearing an enormous corsage-like pin on her turtleneck, Nina did not care that the room was loud and getting louder as more people filed in; she was going to tell us her life story. She also did not care that we might also have lives. We were irrelevant! So:
Nina: I’m a fashion designer.
Jennifer: Oh, Alice’s son is studying to be a fashion designer!
Nina: (glaring) I’ve studied with some greats. I got my start at FIT.
Me: Interesting, that’s where my son goes!
Nina: (Eye roll, dramatic pause) I’VE HAD A FASCINATING LIFE, let me tell you. I’m writing a memoir.
Jennifer (trying to drum up business for me): Alice is a book coach!
Nina (sighing, taking pity on me): I could work with you. My story is very interesting.
She utterly delighted me, and I am not saying that facetiously: there’s a particular brand of self-absorption that I find endlessly entertaining. I mean, she might have just been socially awkward or she might be a bona fide nightmare, but either way, I thoroughly enjoyed talking to her. I barely had to say anything! My favorite part of the exchange was when I asked her what memoirs she likes, and she spat back, “I don’t read memoirs.” Her life is too rich for other people’s stories, it seems. Nina’s got a lot going on!
ANYWAY.
Before we go into the line, a disclaimer: I’m really not trying to make fun of anyone’s work; I love poetry, I’m not a poet, my attempts at poems have been quite bad.
Rozanne is a chef in addition to a poet so a lot of her poetry was about sauces, like béchamel and hollandaise, but sort of sexy? It was hard to tell exactly what was going on in them, but everyone around me murmured appreciatively, and god help us all, some of them snapped their fingers, like we were a bunch of beatniks.
So then she said: “This next poem I feel a little awkward about reading, because it’s about sex, and my daughter is here.” She gestured to her daughter, so we could all see who was being made to feel awkward. Then she started reading the poem. It was about, you know, sex. Sexy things. It was pretty explicit.
And then came the line.
The line was this:
His anus smelled like an old dollar bill.
His anus. Smelled. Like an old dollar bill.
This immediately got my attention. His anus smelled like a what now? I tried to grab my notebook, but my bag was out of reach and I didn’t obviously want to start transcribing after she said “His anus smelled like an old dollar bill” so I chanted it to myself, so I wouldn’t forget. Anus smelled like an old dollar bill, anus smelled… you get the idea.
Even more remarkable: after the poem had concluded, Rozanne said, “that poem was comprised of lines from other people’s poems, each line from a different poem.”
So someone else wrote this line and Rozanne thought, that’s it exactly! That image! Yes! I must have it!
I’m no prude, but I have questions! Namely: how do old dollar bills smell? Do they smell that much different from new ones? Who smells their money? And of course: are we smelling butts now?! Is that a thing? (I mean obviously it’s a thing for someone, but is this just… accepted practice? I mean obviously it’s accepted for someone…oh, lord.) Am I so out of it that I didn’t know? Is it high praise to remark, “Darling, you smell like currency! No, it’s not what you’re thinking—I mean old ones”? And why a dollar bill? Why not a twenty? How did the author of this line get close enough to detect a note of such subtlety? (Yes, I can imagine how. And now I’m imagining it! The power of poetry!) Is this where the line “Is your butt an old dollar bill, because I want to put my nose in it” comes from? You know — the old line.
Everything after that was a blur. I said goodbye to Nina, told her I would never coach her (I didn’t do this, I am a coward) and Jennifer walked me to the subway — a walk during which, remarkably, we never discussed the line “His anus smelled like an old dollar bill”; it wasn’t until the next day that I texted to her, “Hey Jennifer, did this line really happen?” Fully expecting her to tell me that I’m out of my mind, but no, alas, I was correct. Or fortunately, I guess? I haven’t decided yet. Time will tell if I can ever get this out of my head. And now it’s in yours, and I’m sorry about that. (No I’m not.)
Thank you... I'm reading this on my balcony. My downstairs neighbor wants to know what made me laugh so hard. I'm forwarding the email to her.
I didn't know when I opened the email but this was just what I needed to get me out of my cranky mood 💗
She’s the next Amanda Gorman.