A Craigslist Ad: Will Pay for Poem

One entry was different. An anonymous donor named River Whisper loved the arts, and wanted to give $ 10,000 for just one poem.

For years, every summer, I’ve been writing my life in poems.

On the day of the Craigslist diversion, my poem was “Pre-Used”:

And now, at this point

insane moment of age and longing

cusp and pinnacle

when my arms are different arms

when my dreams are always interrupted

longing becomes more than longing

I can no longer do this

or that as much as I still want to

I wake up wondering how

I no longer care so much about why

when a day is not just a day but right now.

Contestants were told to upload their poem and include a brief cover letter explaining what they would do with the prize money. I also had to write a few sentences about myself and my theme. I’m getting older. That’s my theme. It didn’t need much more explanation. With the $ 10,000, I would write more poems.

A few weeks later, close to midnight on a Tuesday, a mysterious e-mail arrived.

“Congratulations!

“You have been selected as one of the 11 finalists chosen from the hundreds of entries we received. We would like to meet you this Friday, July 26th along with the other finalists at 5PM.”

The note gave an address in Chelsea, near the High Line.

“Dinner and drinks will be served,” it went on.

“We would like to discuss your poem and get to know you better on Friday. After this step, we will choose the winner.

“Once again, congratulations.”

It was signed, “River and Whisper.”

Now the questions presented themselves: Was this contest real? Should I go? Was this some sort of Nigerian e-mail fraud? Was River Whisper one person, as it seemed on the Craigslist posting, or two, as this e-mail indicated? Because I know nothing about Craigslist, I called my son, who is 26. “Take a chance,” he said. My husband said go, and so did most of my friends, except one who raised the question of kidnapping. Does anyone kidnap poets? Not for money, certainly. We tried to think of all the possible swindles that this could be, and came up with none.

Still it was hard not to be nervous, or suspicious. Not to wonder what was actually going on. Who River and Whisper were. Whether any of the other poets would show. I had no way of finding out.

The Friday of the dinner, a warm New York summer day where the city moves in slow motion, it was hard to think of anything else besides River and Whisper and poems.

At 4:30, dressed in what I hoped was a suitably poetic outfit, a long dress that made me look as though I could write more than one good poem, I met my husband for a drink at the Half King, an appropriately literary bar near the dinner destination. Friends texted me advice, which was more or less universal: put your husband on speed dial just in case. But just in case of what was impossible to say.

In front of the modern glass building, expensive and imposing, stood two other poets, easily recognizable. One, a beautiful, very young blond woman, was wearing a diaphanous skirt. The other, a man who looked like a good-natured salesman, wore a dinner-party suit. Nervously, we introduced ourselves.

The building was one of those spaces that redefine the color white by being even more white than seems possible. We entered an elevator that went right to the third floor, where we were greeted by a tall blond woman who had a clipboard. She didn’t say enter but she could have. The room was modern, and overly bright. If it is possible to have too much daylight, this room did. The space was small and well staffed with servers and helpers of various kinds, and a bar full of enough Champagne for us all to drink more than a bottle or two. Poets began drinking immediately, and attentive servers made sure that we were never without a full glass. A long table held enough finger foods to serve three times our number.

We found out quickly with the help of the clipboard woman that River and Whisper were two. We were all informed that we were never to know their real names. Their anonymity was this contest’s only rule. River, a nervous Asian man in a T-shirt, walked around to greet us with Whisper, a thin, attractive white woman, much taller than River. River was small and jumpy. Whisper held onto him tenaciously. Whisper was both quiet and bold. They walked through the room to greet all of us, in a shy, tentative way, emphasizing that their anonymity was as important as the poems themselves. Whisper would stop suddenly, seized with unexpected passion, and feel the need to lean over and kiss River in a way that was hard for us nervous poets to ignore. “I’m just crazy about River,” was more or less all she said.

Yahoo Local News – New York Times

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