Can the Poet Populist Be Recalled?

In November, the Cambridge Arts Council selected Peter Payack at the city’s first Poet Populist. Aside from the Soviet-sounding title, the Poet Populist gets a $1,000 stipend and gets to make public appearances. Apparently, the title also gets your work published in the Cambridge Chronicle.

Payack’s poem is titled “Santa and the Ho-Ho-Ho Zone.” As you can imagine, it only gets worse.

In the not-distant future

because of this bind,

would Santa’s sled fly

for the very last time?

Cries of the children

came from far and wide:

“Please stop this warming

before the Earth dies!”

That wouldn’t happen. Even the evolved children of Cambridge are primarily worried about whether Santa will put a Wii under their tree. If the children cried out anything, it would be begging for Santa to somehow engineer a pontoon sleigh for the post-ice cap world so they can still get their loot.

However, it’s an almost-perfect sendup of Cambridge culture. The only thing it’s missing is a mention of the Boy Scouts.