I’ve come to take for granted so much–billboards and product
placements, sponsored posts disguised as honest-to-goodness
journalism, apps making me the product I can search and

share and grow enraged, for free–why should a poetry
podcast not be brought to me by the all-electric Nissan
Ariya, a “fiercely beautiful vehicle, empowering you with

an architectural, lounge-like atmosphere”? Poems are a kind
of advertisement, too: Shakespeare hawking love and betrayal,
Eliot selling me a story about a broken, breaking world.

To the marketing execs at whatever agency realized I am the
perfect potential EV buyer, might I suggest we give up the
pretense, versify every commercial: Ballads for Bud Light,

Ghazals for Geico Insurance, Villanelles for Viagra, Madrigals
for McDonald’s. Now, whenever sadness hits, I make a beeline
for the shopping cart, braindead mariner, addict whose wallet

opens like a door with the hinges blown off; and the scribbled
poem which falls out may as well be gold bullion in a store
that only takes Visa or Mastercard, thanks for understanding.

–

Check out The Slowdown, a Production of American Public Media in partnership with the Poetry Foundation and…Nissan?