MARBL's 12th Night Revel

The night was cold but fur coats warmed many of the patrons.  Inside the Piedmont Driving Club anxious and awkward graduate students and archivists mingled with patrons of the fundraiser.  Theirs was the revel and theirs were the “Chief Revelers.”  While the patrons comfortably mixed and casually greeted the former poet laureate, Robert Pinsky, the students pondered what to order at the open bar.  The patrons were typically older and deeply interested in the goals of the library and Emory University.  They knew professors by name and advocated for open library access to all academic journals.  They were charming and warm and their name plates led them to tables close to the stage and the band. 

The dinner was served to the sound of the Gary Motley Trio.  Emory faculty and administrative figures read poems aloud to eager applause.  When the time came, Robert Pinksy took the stage to read from his Essential Pleasures collection, “an anthology of poems to be read aloud.”  These were America’s favorite poems and he was officially one of America’s favorite poems.  Though many authors may dislike readings, Pinsky seemed in his element.  Not for him were the words Raymond Carver put in Bukowski’s mouth in “You Don’t Know What Love Is”: “I’ve met men in jail who had more style/ than the people who hang around colleges/ and go to poetry readings.”  He was not a reluctant reader; he was a ready charmer.  For him were the words later in the poem: “there’s only one poet in this room tonight;” though certainly many guests felt otherwise in their hearts.  While he read I paused in my playing with the literal marble in Emory colors which lay on the table in proper theme.

Everyone clapped.  Everyone was kind.  MARBL would go on expanding its collections.  Soon these same people would have the pleasure of an evening with Salman Rushdie.  There was a bit of a logjam at the door waiting for the valet at the end.  Eager faces waiting as close to the door as they could tolerate the cold, clutching their new (free) copies of Essential Pleasures.  When the valet saw my car he knew what kind of tip to expect but he did not begrudge me my night in another world.