WEBVTT

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Sometimes, as you know, we write
poems in which we, all writers,

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write poems in
which they mention

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other writers, great writers,
hoping that the glory due them

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will accrue to the author.

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And so I've written a poem
titled, "Spenser, Chaucer,

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Dryden, Johnson, Browning,
Tennyson, Dickens, Hardy

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and Kipling."

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Those nine, with
many others, are

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buried in what's called Poets'
Corner in Westminster Abbey,

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in London.

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Shakespeare's not there.

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And the poem makes
very brief reference

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to Madame Tussauds, the
wax museum in London.

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"Spenser, Chaucer, Dryden,
Johnson, Browning, Tennyson,

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Dickens, Hardy and Kipling."

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"Ladies and gentlemen,
the English language

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holds in the hearts
of each of you

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a place where the poets lie
buried in a musty community.

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Here is that place.

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Think not of Shakespeare.

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He's off by himself.

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That's what he gets
for a girl at court

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and a wife in the suburbs.

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And talking so common.

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He had to go home.

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London's no bargain
for those who remain."

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[CLATTER]

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[LAUGHTER]

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Ah, well, it's still no
bargain for those who remain.

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"We came in the rain
and left it to rain.

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Madonna's wax face is
perfect and the Commonwealth

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compounding ruin.

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Don't anybody bury
Whitman and Williams.

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And seven is American
in one stony corner,

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and the rest of us neither.

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Death is no anthology or
a cough in the audience.

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We all know how many times
our critic reads a book.

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Less than once.

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So if we have to
be buried alive,

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let those who always
know better look for us

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one at a time, in the
ground gone over."

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