Poem in the Manner of Max Jacob

ISSUE: Fall 2015

Do you know the poems of Max Jacob?
Do you know Talese, Gay? Swenson, May?
Do you know Goldfinger, alias Gert Fröbe?
Do you know Robinson, Sugar Ray?

Do you know the way to San Jose?
Have you sung with Doris Day?
Have you danced with Danny Kaye?
Do you know the former Cassius Clay?

Have you met Barbara Stanwyck?
Had tea with Henry Kissinger?
Debra Winger? Marlene Dietrich?
Now do you wonder who’s kissing her?

Have you taken a selfie with Anita O’Day?
Fay Wray? Zane Grey? Gatsby, Jay?
What about the stories of E. Hemingway?
Have you listened to the music of Billy May?

We little know the ones we would adore
But I’m pretty sure I shall meet them soon
Being all these people myself (and more),
Who am yet only a baboon.

David Lehman

David Lehman is the author of numerous collections of poetry including New and Selected Poems (Scribner, 2013), When a Woman Loves a Man (Scribner, 2005), and The Daily Mirror (Scribner, 2000). His latest book is Sinatra’s Century: One Hundred Notes on the Man and His World (HarperCollins, 2015). He is the series editor of Best American Poetry and edited The Oxford Book of American Poetry. He received the Deems Taylor Award from ASCAP for A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs (Schocken, 2009). He teaches in the New School graduate writing program.