Jennifer Lagier

DR. NAZI'S POETRY WORKSHOP

You know the type:
white, middle-aged, male.
Flaunts his MFA.
Hasn’t been laid
by a woman with a brain
for at least twenty years.
Runs his workshop
like a poetry pogrom.
Complains your work is
too realistic, hard-edged.
Lavishes attention
on the rhyming blonde
with enormous breasts.
Knocks back beers
alongside a slam poet
wearing tight leather pants.
His red pencil
tortures your lines,
removes the teeth
from a story.
Turns your voice into
an imitation of his.
Suggests asphyxiation
by adjectives
as a final solution.


Jennifer reads "Dr. Nazi's Poetry Workshop":



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Jennifer confesses: "The character in this poem is a compilation of the various slimeballs I've encountered at writing workshops who use their position to pick up women or parade their egos."


JENNIFER LAGIER has published ten poetry books and in literary magazines. She taught with California Poets in the Schools and is now a retired college librarian/instructor, member of the Italian American Writers Association, co-edits the Homestead Review, helps coordinate monthly Monterey Bay Poetry Consortium Second Sunday readings. Website: http://jlagier.net/