Peter Piper Pens a Pickled Poem

A WRITER'S WIT
Of all the icey blasts that blow on love, a request for money is the most chilling and havoc-wreaking.
​Gustave Flaubert
​Born December 12, 1821

New Yorker Fiction 2016

Alex Merto

​December 12, 2016, Joseph O’Neill, “Pardon Edward Snowden”: A young poet pens a poem that petitions President Obama to pardon dissident Edward Snowden. ¶ There is always a difficulty in fictionalizing pop culture or more accurately living history. Snowden’s plight has not played out completely. The light shed on Dylan’s acceptance of the Nobel Prize for poetry seems to have exploded and dimmed like a nova. O’Neill’s story really seems to be about the plight of poets: their anonymity despite a competence with and superior understanding of language that far surpass those of the most proficient prose writers. The poet Mark McCain, by way of a BCCed e-mail, is solicited by the young on-the-cusp-of-success poet, Merrill Jensen, to sign his petition. This is how the decade-older McCain responds:

---

“He did not write Merrill back. He did not put his name to the poetition.
 
As soon as he had not done these things, he rose up from his chair. He went not to the window but to the area between the chair and the sofa. He stood there with hands balled into shaking fists. Silently and exultantly he roared, Never give in. Never not resist” (69).

I’ve never see utter rage portrayed more splendidly—at least as far as a spurned poet is concerned. O’Neill’s most recent novel is The Dog.
Illustration by Alex Merto.

---

READ MY ‘BEHIND THE BOOK’ BLOG SERIES for My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. In these posts I speak of the creative process I use to write each story. Buy a copy here!

​At new prices. Paper: $10.75 | £7.75 | €8.50  Kindle: $2.99

Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
"My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
"A Certain Kind of Mischief"
"Ghost Riders"
"The Best Mud"
"Handy to Some"
"Blight"
"A Gambler's Debt"
"Tales of the Millerettes"
"Men at Sea"
"Basketball Is Not a Drug"
"Engineer"
"Snarked"
"Killing Lorenzo"
"The Age I Am Now"
"Bathed in Pink"
 
Listen to My Long-Playing Records Podcasts:
"A Certain Kind of Mischief"
"The Best Mud"
"Handy to Some"
"Tales of the Millerettes"
"Men at Sea"
"My Long-Playing Records"
"Basketball Is Not a Drug"
"Snarked"
"Killing Lorenzo"
"Bathed in Pink"
Also available on iTunes.

---