First annual Ongoing Dancer Award. Honorarium to be gifted on February 20th annually to an individual, individuals or institution by the Estate of Scott Wannberg. "For dedication to poem and process, and for unflagging dedication to community." Art by Ken Tao.
2014 recipient Richard Modiano. Photo by S.A. Griffin.
Doc
for William Carlos Williams
Some rural road in Jersey.
Doc's car stalled on the left shoulder.
His back seat filled with the fish his Italian patients
have given him because they
don't have the money.
He figures he better fix whatever is wrong.
Flossie is waiting up ahead. Cold strawberries on ice.
He bends down to examine the car and finds an Asphodel.
The Asphodel is definitely a New Jersey
styled local type of flora.
The Asphodel tells him that Ezra has gone crazy in Europe.
Doc frowns. Asphodels don't talk, but this one... well,
it suddenly metabolizes into a miniature red wheelbarrow
and a tender rain begins to land
on Doc's head.
He just has to write a poem about all this.
He doesn't have any paper in the back.
Of course, the lack of paper, and the fact that his pen
is out of ink, is no obstacle.
He writes it all down on the side of his car
with his fingernails.
Eliot said if you write with your nails it isn't too poetic.
Stevens said you leave your nails at work.
This is my work, Doc counters.
The poem nailed on the paint
of his car causes the engine to kick over.
Exhaust meets the Jersey air
with some strange yet beautiful music.
Scott Wannberg
w/love to all,
Scott/S.A.
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