Fall Poetry Fest: On Reading Barbara Pym

When reading Barbara Pym,

the sets are like a scrim;

you see right through the characters,

be it a her or him.

To all the English preachers,

(of whom she cannot say enough),

and all the English teachers,

those learned folk who read her stuff-

I wish that I could write like Pym

of life’s peculiar lots,

I think like Twain but so far sound

like Stephen Dowling Bots.

Twain is to be studied,

Shakespeare is revered,

but when I want to just relax,

to Barbary Pym I’m geared.