Author Information
Prose About a Poem
He steps up to the mike at the half-deserted suburban coffeehouse with a piece that he's just pulled from his polished black briefcase. His awkward frame is dressed in flared jeans, a black t-shirt, a vomit-ugly green striped necktie, and white low-rise Chuck Taylor sneakers. In his self-important, "I am the shit," nerd boy voice, he starts to read his so-called masterpiece. He reads the piece with the seriousness of a Shakespearean actor, and his piece alludes to everything from the Bible to Kerouac with few words under three syllables. You feel remorse when you begin to laugh, but you have no control as he reads his 18-page mock epic about someone bumping his frail elbow as he stood enraptured on the front row of a Weezer concert.
