Model Answer (Transportation)

I’m a sub-C student trying to become president. I’m a minor poet trying to become a bargain bin, airport novelist. In short, I’m trying to move on up. Dust myself off and big up myself. Hell, W broke an oil company. Look at him now. He’ll never make a postage stamp, but the kids in Africa know his name. I wish I had been a child actor, so my mistakes could have been glorious. Instead, I’m left with the taste of failure. And that is a bad lunch.

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Author's Note:
The poem's form borrows from the model answer type books that are published for standardized tests like the SAT or IELTS. It's working against the expectations of that genre, as an exercise in negative cohesion and coherence. This poem is part of a project with the Nessa School arts collective.

David Harrison Horton

David Harrison Horton is a Beijing-based writer, artist, editor and curator. He is author of Maze Poems (Arteidolia) and the chapbooks Pete Hoffman Days (Pinball) and BeiHai (Nanjing Poetry). He edits the poetry zine SAGINAW.