Just Let Me Say This About That: A Narrative Poem

This hilarious and lyrical narrative poem takes the form of a press conference, hosted by "Sir," a ventriloquistic God who at turns is the Creator, the President of the United States, everybody's father, psychoanalyst or sage—someone to go to with your problems. "Bird," along with "Fox," and "Fish" are journalists, their questions veiled in rhetoric. They aren't really asking political questions. No Sir. What they really want to know is no less than the meaning of life.

Just Let Me Say This About That is uncanny and familiar, wacky and eloquent . . . and down-the-line American in its sense and sensibility. As J.M. Coetzee writes, "this is the kind of philosophical poem we have deserved but not been given before, confronting the closing years of the American century with bleak hilarity and an unblinking eye."