"Visiting Faculty" by Andrea Selch

After figuring out the right answer to our poetry challenge, Andrea Selch composed this acrostic in which "John and I / Observed the interaction" of a visiting poet (who may or may not be Louise Gluck) and the campus literary community. See how well she conjures up the scene. The line about bitterness is, alas, dead on. -- DL

Visiting Faculty
                                    
Lurking at the dead end of the table, John and I
Observed the interaction — obsequious graduate students
Underdressed to the nines, eager for wine and limelight, and the
I-am-also-successful program faculty, nodding knowledgeably
(So much bitterness beneath their jovial politesse and
Extemporaneous paeans) — while she sat, looking, truth be told, a little

Glazed. At dinner's end, the clink of glasses celebrating, at long
Last, her reunion with an old student, whose accomplishments
       yadda yadda yadda…the
Über-moment for all poets in these programs, and the two of us, 
Coming from "outside" (up the road), wove our stems among the others,
        disappearing into
Kultur, even before the evening's unaffected reading had begun. 

             -- Andrea Selch