Four Nursing Homes
I read a great passage from the book The Music of Failure, by Minnesota native, Bill Holm last night. In the book he recounts a few poetry gigs that he and a few other poets lined up at nursing homes around Southern Minnesota. I thought I’d share two of them here this morning.

CANBY

Poets read in the bad wing. a spastic sits up front trying to eat squiggly orange jello without much success. He aims for his mouth but hits his ear. Jello spreads in streaks down already stained pajamas. I read something cheerful. An old man shuffles in from the side with wax paper stuck to his bare foot. The paper squeaks on the tile floor as he walks. He tries to grab the microphone from me. . . .
“What’s goin’ on here? I got somethin’ to say. . . .”
The nurse comes up, embarrassed, and slides him away, wax paper and all. I look down at orange jello, wondering what revelation I missed that would do me any good at ninety.

DAWSON

The poets read. There is a faint stink of excrement, ammonia, scented candles, and sugar cookies. She sits quietly for the first stanza, but then screws up her toothless face. . . .
“Shit! It’s all shit! They’re crazy, crazy! Why do we have to sit here and listen to this shit!”
The dignified Norwegian lady sitting next to her is so used to boredom that she would sit quietly listening to the Congressional Record read in Urdu by a computer. She has survived sermons for ninety years, after all. She reaches discreetly for her ear to disconnect her hearing aid.
The crank goes on: “Shit! Nothing but shit!”
She will do no such thing as go gentle into that good night. She gets louder and crankier during my poems. I like her even better. I want to kidnap her, first to Minneapolis, then New York, and wheel her to committee meetings, cocktail parties, congressional hearings, celebrations of mass, and serious cultural occasions. I may even marry her.