Revisiting "For Godot"

In Fall 2008, Stephen McLaughlin and Jim Carpenter edited an anthology (3785 pages) featuring 3164 poets. McLaughlin and Carpenter did not ask any of the writers for permission to print their works. In fact, the poems attributed to the individual poets weren’t even written by them.

The anthology, needless to say, attracted much attention from the ‘featured’ writers, who were indignant, flattered or vocally indifferent. You can read some discussion on Harriet and download the PDF of the issue (3.9 MB).

Someone told me that if you are in the anthology, that means you have some sort of web presence. “How else did the ‘editors’ find you?” The poem I didn’t write was titled “A Marble” (it is on p. 3380). I rather liked ‘my’ poem, partly because it has ‘graves’ in it and they have capitalised the ‘M’ in my name.

A marble

Disconsolate crowns and monumental sealing-waxes
Grave marbles and dispiriting graves
Disconsolate as a
           diadem .
Like a diadem
Played
                                      Tammy Ho Lai-Ming

Last night, J brought me a beautiful blue marble; it reminded me of the poem and the anthology.

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