Alien vs. Predator - Michael Robbins' very Unsquirrel-like New Yorker Poem

Here's a very unsquirrel-like poem by Michael Robbins that appeared in the January 12th issue of the New Yorker.

I'm not sure what to make of this poem. But it's very exciting to read. Thrilling. A wild ride.

I'm not saying that the New Yorker should publish a bunch of poems like Michael's. But mixing in more different "stuff" more often would be nice.

Alien vs. Predator


Praise this world, Rilke says, the jerk.

We’d stay up all night. Every angel’s

berserk. Hell, if you slit monkeys

for a living, you’d pray to me, too.

I’m not so forgiving. I’m rubber, you’re glue.



That elk is such a dick. He’s a space tree

making a ski and a little foam chiropractor.

I set the controls, I pioneer

the seeding of the ionosphere.

I translate the Bible into velociraptor.



In front of Best Buy, the Tibetans are released,

but where’s the whale on stilts that we were promised?

I fight the comets, lick the moon,

pave its lonely streets.

The sandhill cranes make brains look easy.



I go by many names: Buju Banton,

Camel Light, the New York Times.

Point being, rickshaws in Scranton.

I have few legs. I sleep on meat.

I’d eat your bra—point being—in a heartbeat.

6 New Yorker Poems --- Mostly Squirrels

in hospital waiting rooms and waiting cubicles I read a few New Yorkers. and most of the poems in there are Squirrels. i'll explain a bit more later (maybe.)


1) "Hubris at Zunzal" by Rodney Jones

I kinda like this poem. Even though the title and beginning bother me. The title indulges in a kind of pretentiousness Charles Simic's fond of in his titles. (aside: I do like Simic. but, retarded titles is one of his worst flaws.)

here's the opening stanza:

Nearly sunset, and time on the water

of 1984. Language its tracer.

No image like the image of language.

1984-- huh ?? I don't know if I'm stupid or if the poet's being clumsy. Whatever, I'm confused. But by the end of the poem (coconut orgasm-sea-shower) I'm kind of ok with the strange clunky 1984. And it all comes together quite strangely. And with some excitement.

Rating: Medium


2) "Bereavement" by Kevin Young


A meditation on death and consciousness via the speaker's deceased father's dogs. (reminds me of the squirrel poem I mentioned briefly in a post a while back. a poem I also read in the New Yorker. a poem also read while visiting a doctor. in the same issue as the Jean Valentine poem that made me sigh Muldoon and Heaney -sigh-).

A squirrel poem's where you see a squirrel and meditate on it: its condition, plight, consciousness, conscience, prescience, messy-ness, etc, etc. Then you think of yourself. An epiphany occurs. Light or dark. Black or white. Sometimes striped. Like a skunk. Usually a circle's made. It's quite inspiring. Damnit! It makes me wretch! (I should go check my own poems. Probably a bunch of squirrels in there too. Wretch! Wretch! Wretch!)

A poem like this is not only entirely different from how I think and/or write (an alien, a dinosaur, a piece in a wax museum) I can find nothing positive to say about it. This is the sort of poem that brings about Epilepsy in an otherwise normal healthy adult person. Here are a couple of stanzas (in the middle of the poem) that had me really twitching:

I’ve begun to think of them

as my father’s other sons,

as kin. Brothers-in-paw.

My eyes each day thaw.

One day the water cuts off.

Then back on.

3) "Pernilla" by John Ashberry

Here's an excerpt from the poem. I couldn't find it on-line to link to.


Please don’t apologize for pissing me off, you were
probably right, and I was halfway out the door
anyway, the living-room door, leading to the hall
and all it contains. How is it that things can get
shiny and be peeling simultaneously? Seriously, Pa,
we would have come over if we’d knowed
the combination for long, and then folks’d have pointed
toward us, miming birdsong and the like.

What can I say about Ashberry? You've all got an opinon, one way or another. I don't have much of an opinon. Of any sort. I envy yall. Your places in the sunlight. Damn, I sound like a schmuck. O, well,...

Rating: No Rating


4) "The Game" by Bruce Smith

Longer lines. No stanzas. Muddier. But in the end my experience of this piece is kinda like my experience of Kevin Young's "Bereavement." And, so it reminds me of the squirrel poem. Yes, again, I was doused with Squirrel Juice.

But this time the meditation comes from Baseball (how original!). Here's how the poem ends:

...but I thought,

in all this infinity, of the Clementes, the Mayses, and the Yogis,

of the bats of ash I would have to crack and would I have to squeeze

them home? Would I be asked to sacrifice? Would I belly-button it

or break my wrists trying not to swing? There’s a box and a zone

in the air and the dirt I must own. To find my way out

or know where it is I sit, I keep my ticket stub in my fist.

Rating: Very Low to Low

Squarely in the middle of the huge Squirrel Pile. Mound. Bog. Hogbelly.




5) "At Lake Scugog" by Troy Jollimore

A meditation on relationships, time and shifting selves against the backdrop of water and sky and self. A bit cutesy but the annoying language constructions like

and what I believe I believe

sits uncomfortably next to

what I believe.

actually began to wear on me.

Kind of a squirrel poem. Or a cousin. Maybe a "rabbit" poem. And I kind of like rabbits.

Rating: Low to Medium




6) "Monja Blanca" by Clive James


A long 7-stanza meditation on (?) via a tree. But I'll never know the ? because I stopped after reading the first line of the 2nd stanza

This orchid’s sexual commerce is confined


Rating: Extremely Low-Virtually Zero


It's unfair, I'm sure, to rate a poem you've only read a fraction of. But, I couldn't stand the title. Couldn't stand what I read, and, closing the New Yorker in absolute fright This orchid’s sexual commerce is confined found myself covered in all forms of putrid squirrel fluid, runny and chunky,