Paul Violi is the recipient of the 2001 Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and letters, as well as grants from The Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Fund for Poetry, and other poetry awards. His first prose collection, Selected Accidents, Pointless Anecdotes, was recently published by Hanging Loose Press.

 

 

 

 

 

On an Acura Integra
 

Please think of this as not merely a piece
Of writing that anyone would fully
Appreciate, but as plain and simple
Words that attempt to arouse whatever
Appetencies you, especially, depend
Upon language to fulfull; that drench you
In several levels of meaning at once,
Rendering my presence superfluous.
In other words, welcome this as a poem,
Not merely a missive I've slowly composed
And tucked under your windshield wiper
So that these onlookers who saw me bash
In your fender will think I'm jotting down
The usual information and go away.
 

 

 

from Fracas by Paul Violi, Hanging Loose Press, 1999.