Thursday, April 19, 2007

AOL AND CHO

by Iris Litt


On the sign-in screen
AOL offered info
on Cho
and how Nikki Giovanni kicked him out of
her creative writing class.
I had turned off the TV;
it was dripping blood,
but I wanted to see
how Giovanni
dealt with a student
who brought in a rant
instead of a poem
and what would I do
if my class had a Cho?
But when I clicked Print
my computer said
"the application AOL has unexpectedly quit."
When I tried to get the offer of enlightenment back
it was mysteriously gone from the screen.
I'd noted that Giovanni said
she had tried to divert Cho from Self,
told him to objectify his thoughts
so I eagerly clicked Print and clicked again.
But AOL couldn't take it.
I couldn't print.
And Cho couldn't quit.


Iris Litt's new book of poetry is What I Wanted to Say from Shivastan Publishing. She is the author of a former book of poetry, Word Love, published by Cosmic Trend Publications. She has had poems published in many literary magazines including Onthebus, Confrontation, Hiram Poetry review, Tiger's Eye, The New Renaissance, Asphodel, Poetry Now, Central Park, Icarus, The Rambunctious Review, Pearl,The Ledge, Earth's Daughters, Poet Lore, Scholastic, Atlantic Monthly (special college edition) and many others. Her short stories and articleshave also been widely published. She teaches writing workshops in Woodstock, NY, and has taught creative writing at Bard College, SUNY/Ulster, Writers in the Mountains, Educational Alliance, New York Public Library, Marble Collegiate Church and many other venues in New York City and the Hudson Valley. She lives in Woodstock, NY and in New York City's Greenwich Village.