Paul Haney
Associate Editor Caitlin Doyle: Paul Haney’s innovative sonnet “Spoils” gestures toward the ecstatic tradition in English-language poetry while reveling without restraint in the excesses of contemporary life. Artfully blending an antiquated diction register with a profusion of colloquial phrases and brand names, Haney creates such an echo-rich sonic atmosphere that we’re helpless to resist joining in his revelry. Yet he also subtly spurs us to look beneath the gleaming surfaces that surround us and question their cost. Even in a shared “gig-economy” of “candied Ubers” and “co-op chia soap,” with labor, goods, and profits increasingly localized and self-sourced, Haney suggests that our unquenchable appetites for consumption may render us unable to fully “settle up” with each other.
To hear Paul read the poem, click below:
Spoils
O gig-economy Jesus, bedazzling your pedicab,
tell me, do your ratings outshine the candied Ubers?
Along the esplanade hydrants spew dry-hopped pollen
while tattooed pigeons peck farm-raised hot dogs—
even the birds are locavores! O radiant nannies
pushing strollers stocked with tomorrow’s fuccbois—
hustle! The blinking hand can’t beckon forever. You
thirsty streetlight framing this paddleboard twilight.
You food truck take-over—shit! I missed my shift again.
Understand, last night I spooned the Ur-Tinder manikin,
slid home lathered in co-op chia soap. Now I’m late
for bondage night at Paint Your Own Pottery—wait!
May I sensitivity-read your e-book? We’ll settle up
once the rainbow appears: Keep your pockets clear.
Paul Haney‘s work has appeared in The Boston Globe Magazine, Slate, Essay Daily, Sweet, Fourth Genre, and elsewhere. Former editor-in-chief of Redivider, he lives and teaches in Boston. Follow him @paulhaney.
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