This next poem-- when I started out
being a poet, some of my favorite poets
wrote under pseudonyms, nom de plumes.
And so I started out writing under a pseudonym, which
I quickly gave up.
But after that, people would ask me,
what happened to your pen name?
Why aren't you using a pen name?
And so I had to write this poem to sort of explain
what happened to the pen name.
"Poem.
I wrote under a pen name.
One day I shook the pen."
Well, some visual aid here.
With a ballpoint pen.
"I wrote under a pen name.
One day, I shook the pen, trying to make the name come out.
I wanted to see that pen name outside the pen.
But no, it's like me, prefers clinging to the inner calypso.
The inner calypso.
So I tossed the pen to my pet, the wastebasket, to eat."
That's my pet-- the wastebasket.
"It'll vomit back the name.
I'll get the name that way.
Names aren't fit for inhuman consumption.
But no again, it's stayed down.
I don't use a pen anymore."
Excuse me.
"I don't use a pen name anymore.
I don't use a pen anymore.
I don't write anymore.
I just sit, looking at the wastebasket,
with this alert intelligent look on my face."
[LAUGHTER]
And it works, believe me.
And just look at your wastebasket
with that intelligent alert, intelligent look,
and you'll see.