Backbone > Quarter to Three
So NEAr, Yet So Far

illustration by Thomas McDonough

2/29
"I'm applying for a NEA," Emmy tells me, as we lunch on soup at the B & H Dairy Restaurant on 2nd Avenue, in lower Manhattan. (I have potato soup; she has borscht.)

These 5 words prove beguiling-and indelible, over time.

3/4
My National Endowment for the Arts Application Guidelines booklet arrives. I am not certain I'm applying; I'm just considering it.

3/5
Under "mission" the booklet writes: "The National Endowment for the Arts, an investment in America's living cultural heritage, serves the public good by nurturing the expression of human creativity, supporting the cultivation of community spirit, and fostering recognition and appreciation of the excellence and diversity of our nation's artistic accomplishments."

Since both "excellence" and "diversity" are in boldface, we can recognize what the NEA is hinting: if you are excellent but not diverse, you're only as good as someone who is diverse but not excellent-while the excellent and diverse have the best chance of all.

Well, I am diverse. I am certainly diverse. In any group, I represent diversity (except perhaps a group of Marxist old hippies). First of all, I am ethnically diverse. I am half-Pennsylvania Dutch and half-Jewish. It is very unusual for Jews to marry Pennsylvania Dutchwomen, partly because they never meet. And certainly, they rarely met in 1948, when my parents were first acquainted-where my father was a union organizer at the RCA plant my mother labored in. This was in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Besides, I am diverse in other ways. Religiously, for example, I am an agnostic, a devoted student of yoga, a Conservative Jew, an existentialist, a skeptic-plus I have converted to Christianity three times! Politically, I am anti-capitalist, yet my hobby is writing self-help books, which will make me rich. Even my diet is mostly vegan, yet I am wildly indulgent in Wise potato chips.

3/6
Apparently you may not tell the NEA: "I want the money because I don't like working. I find employment a little tedious." Instead, you must invent some grand project the grant will help you achieve. Here is what I concoct:

I live in a small town and have very little money for travel. I am interested in writing a book about Abraham Lincoln's brother. This grant would allow me to visit libraries in New York City and at SUNY New Paltz. Also I need to read to expand my literary education.

It sounds outrageous, but it is true. I was going to add other books I hope to write-one about the local Underground Railroad, one about George Washington Carver (and as I considered these, some evil Tempter said: "Maybe they'll think I'm black, then they'll definitely give me the money.")

But would they believe I could write three books in one year? It doesn't sound very professional.

So I mention the one book I most believe I will write.

3/7
I struggle with the question, "Should I put a red-and-white striped paper clip on the three copies of my application form? Does it look too radical?" Finally I decide, "I am a poet, goddamn it. The least they can allow me is a peppermint-colored paper clip!"

3/8
To prove my eligibility I must submit "20 or more different poems or pages of poetry in five or more literary journals, anthologies, or publications which regularly include poetry as a portion of their format." But what exactly do they consider a "literary journal?" My most recent publication, Emo 8, for example (30 Colonial Avenue, Lancaster, NY 14086) is stapled together by Natalie Basinsky, who I think is 19. Besides, it contains my poem "Ton Anus":

In 8.2 years,
a ton of feces
passes through
the anus.

Finding a pile of unread magazines, I remember I have been published in The Cafe Review (c/o Yes books, 20 Danforth Street, Portland, ME 04101) in Fall of 1998-a nice, perfect-bound little journal (though a skeleton with a violin is on the cover). I turn to my entries, on pages 6 and 7:

Cum Fort
Out of my cum I built a fort.
Now I stand on the parapet, watching for enemies.

Zen Sex Koans, '98
1. As the Mayor closes topless bars,
the President explains his blow jobs on TV.

2. "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar"-
Sigmund Freud. True or false?

3. Who saves semen-stained dresses?

4. Imagine Linda Tripp's sex life.

(My god!, I think, as I read these. I am a goddamn pornographer!) These are not the best poems, I decide, to submit to the George W. Bush administration while asking for funds.

Then I find Mudfish 12 (Box Turtle Press, 184 Franklin Street, New York City 10013), a lovely, book-like magazine that publishes John Ashbery. Within is my poem, "Giuliani Poem":

I hate
Rudolph Giuliani

And I fear
he will take revenge
on my wife, my daughter and me
if I sign this poem

So I will use a pseudonym: "Henry David Thoreau"
I hope Giuliani's face rots
under a subway

-Henry David Thoreau

"This is going to be more difficult than I planned," I ponder.
And what about LUNGFULL! magazine (126 East 4th Street, No. 2, New York City 10003)? Does the NEA consider that a "literary journal?" Its most recent issue has 210 pages, with a glossy cover the editor (and my friend) Brendan Lorber describes as "entirely waterproof & stain resistant." Yet its name is mystifying, and it contains poems which begin:

Who wouldn't resent this breathalyzer
on the middle finger of the occult
each photo finish a Shiite

(I decide to include it.)
Having assembled my Proof of Eligibility, I must now compile my Manuscript Material ("clearly reproduced copies of manuscript samples of work that you have written between January 1, 1995 and March 11, 2002 and for which you have sole artistic responsibility"). In other words, a few poems.

Again, I avoid the word "shit" and insults to the Rich.

3/10
I finish my 10-page packet. Without politics and obscenity I am a romantic, with poems like:

Prayed
Often I prayed-long nights, and bare,
dim mornings-for one face,

and now my prayers are unnecessary,
for you are here, in my room,

lying in bed with me-

and I can face God
without prayer.

A new fear: I don't have any return address labels with my actual legal name on them-all of them say "Sparrow". Will this disqualify me, after all my effort?

I walk into Phoenicia Hardware to begin my Xeroxing. "I'm going to make a few copies," I tell Dave, the proprietor. "No, you're not," he replies, smiling.

I look to the back of the store-the Xerox machine is missing!
"Dave got tired of everyone in town saying, 'Seven cents is too much,'" my wife explained, when I returned home. The nearest Xerox machine is in Woodstock-and I don't drive!

"If you just help me with a little Xeroxing, you will soon have $20,000," I promise my wife.
She agrees.

How will I spend my $20,000? Certainly, I will give it all to my wife-except for a mere 800 dollars. With this I will arrange a grand banquet for all my friends I owe money to-who have paid for brunches and dinners for me, all these years. I'll hold this feast in Gandhi, an Indian restaurant in the East Village. Toasts will go around the table, over Golden Lion beer: "To Sparrow, whose gratitude is delayed, but never extinguished!" "To Sparrow, a truly Nationally-Endowed Artist!"

3/11
Violet takes my manuscript to Woodstock, to Xerox.

"Did you read my poems?" I ask her, when she returns.

"Yes. I like them," she says quietly. "That onions one is amazing."

That was the one I was most uncertain of-was it too weird for the United States Government?

Onions Divine
Cut onions into the shape of serpents. Soak in

1 cup vinegar
1 tsp salt
4 daisy petals

for two hours. Sauté in canola oil. When onions are amber, remove. Serve on a sliced peach.

There is a bureaucratic pleasure in arranging the requisite pieces in order: the nine booklets of 10 poems each, neatly stapled, the three copies of my Admission Form, my Application Acknowledgment Card, all smartly paperclipped together. Even if I lose-even if I receive a reply from a governmental agent indicting: "These poems are pointless, and silly!"-I have succeeded, in some sense. I have proven myself an adult.

"Which corner do we staple them in?" Violet asks.
I search in the booklet, reading the same paragraph 15 times. Finally I locate it: "It doesn't say which corner to staple them in. It only says the page numbers must be in the upper right hand corner."

There is something dispiriting about the address I send my application to: "Office of Information and Technology Management, Room 815." It is only after this, in parentheses, that the words "Creative Writing Fellowships" appear. Is that my fate, to be assessed by the Office of Information and Technology Management, in Room 815? Are these poems I hear dictated by the gods just "information" to be "managed"? Am I myself some human-looking piece of poetry technology? And how sad is the number 815!

Somehow I know that on my way to the post office tomorrow-in the one block between my house and the brick building the postal service administers-volcanoes will explode, earthquakes will erupt, fire will descend from Heaven to smite me, deadly kangaroos will attack. Something will stop me from mailing my masterpiece.

If only I could give the manuscript a title (which is disallowed)! I would call it Boo-Boos Without Band-Aids.

3/12
I picture all the poets across America-and even the squarest poets must wait for the last day to mail this-in their suede jackets, berets, bowties, sunglasses, bowler hats-and women poets, wearing long print dresses depicting pink orchids-all licking envelopes, sliding paper clips onto pages, borrowing five dollars from their mother for postage-all over America: atop mountains, overlooking bays, inside subways, hiking through the Painted Desert. God bless ye, American poets! God grant ye great poems, though He will deny almost all of ye $20,000!

I lick my own envelope, and place Shelley's Poetical Works on top to weigh it down-for one last dose of good luck.

"Use Certified, first class mail," advises the application guidelines booklet. "Do not use Special Delivery or Special Handling. We strongly recommend that you send material 'return receipt requested,' which will serve as your immediate notification (and postmark proof) that the material has reached the Art Endowment," the booklet continues.
I feel an urge to Battle The Status Quo, and refuse to send material "return receipt requested." But this anarchic moment vanishes, when I reach the postal desk.

3/13
What was I thinking? Will some panel of experts-there must be nine of them, because I made nine copies of my packet-all agree my anti-aesthetic poems deserve to be bathed in vast dollars? Oh, it is embarrassing, and impossible. For example, this poem:

Fix Figs
I always
fix my figs.

If one tears,
I sew
the seam.

If a stem
is lost, I
make
another,
of
leather.

If a mouse
nibbles
one, I
fill the
hole
with wax.

Which nine people on earth would award this poem with 20,000 bucks?

3/21
I am riding with my friend Polk, and he stops for gas. After pouring Regular in his tank, he goes inside to pay. "I'll have one Lotto, and a Pick Four," he tells the cashier.

I am shocked. How pathetic and small and sniveling to gamble on a deceptive Future Payoff. I know Polk hates his job-he is a waiter-but shouldn't he change his life, not rely on a cheapo fantasy?

Then I recall the NEA: Lotto For The Literary. I am just like Polk, I silently think. Polk and I are alike.