Daniel Lin
The best compliment one writer can give another is to tell him that he's written something you wish that you had written. Good poets may borrow, and great poets may indeed steal, but The Nepotist's job is to publish and to gush, and gush I will over these three epigrams (and dammit if I didn't wish I wrote them myself). While Daniel's bio points to other, more sober poetries, it's a mistake to read these short, tight poems, give a smile or a smirk in reaction, and then forego them in favor of Daniel's 'poker-faced literary work.' The short, self-contained poem is the most difficult of all poems to compose. Try your own approximation of these if you doubt me: Start with a concept that closes onto itself. Now add rhyme and meter. Now make it witty and incisive. See what I mean? These are exquisite, quotable, and oh so very keen.
Thanks, Daniel.
***
SAVANT
I was working while you were sleeping.
I'll be talking with my sources
While you stem your wife's weeping.
Through my bloodless veins courses
Ambition and diet Sprite.
Your fat children dream of horses.
***
CELEBRITIES
Brad left Jen, and all the publicists were mad,
But you're not Jen, and I'm not Brad.
***
AN IDEALIZATION
You're an endless line
I'm moving slowly along.
There's no curve or design.
You're infinitely long.
***
About the Poet:
These
are 3 of Daniel Lin's epigrams. For a look at his more somber, serious,
poker-faced literary work visit the new issues of Octopus (www.octopusmagazine.com) and Sink Review (www.sinkreview.org),
as well as the latest print issue of Notre Dame Review. He runs Love
Among the Ruins, a small press based in NYC that produces poetry
chapbooks and a literary journal (www.loveamongtheruins.com).
On the identity of The Nepotist:
My first guess is Josh Mehigan, though he's kind of busy learning theory in grad school. Or Jill Alexander Essbaum, but she's probably watching Lost or writing a novel. Jessica Piazza seems a likely candidate (who else knows Eric McHenry AND me?) but she swears it isn't her. It's a kerfuffle.
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