POETIC INJUSTICE

By CALVIN TRILLIN

My wife told me I shouldn't make a big thing about not having been asked to deliver the poem at Bill Clinton's Inauguration next week. She said I was beginning to remind her of Newt Gingrich talking about having to get off Air Force One through the rear door. "Nobody likes a whiner," she said.

"I'm not making a big thing," I said. "Let's just say that I know how Richard Holbrooke felt when Madeleine Albright was named Secretary of State."

There is no evidence, I'll admit, that I was under consideration for Inaugural poet in the first place. The White House headhunters could have missed the long narrative poems in this space about each of the political conventions. They might have been unaware that perched on another soapbox, I have long provided weekly verse so focused on current affairs that I've rhymed Dole with "liberal mole" and "preppie troll" (during the Forbes challenge, of course) and, in reference to his delivery of the Republican reply to the President's State of the Union message, "as limp as sauteed escarole."

My wife said complaining about not being picked could be misunderstood as criticism of the poet who was chosen--Miller Williams, of Fayetteville, Arkansas, whose work, from what she'd heard from discerning literary friends, I might like very much if I ever took the trouble to read it.

"My disappointment should not be taken in any way as criticism of Miller Williams," I said. "I'm sure Mr. Williams is one of the better Arkansas poets."

"I would say that 'one of the better Arkansas poets' falls short of a gracious endorsement," she said.

"I meant no disrespect," I said. "That particular region has produced many noted poets. I happen to be from Missouri myself, just one state away. So was T.S. Eliot, even though he did eventually move to England and start talking funny."

I also don't want to imply cronyism. According to a newspaper item I read, Williams, who was close to Bill Clinton when the Clintons lived in Fayetteville many years ago, could now be described more accurately as an acquaintance than a friend--although, as Lani Guinier and Harold Ickes could testify, that seems to be true of everyone the President knows.

I did feel it only fair, though, to point out to my wife that many people may underestimate the difficulty of writing verse that must include the names of whichever politician a fickle electorate happens to thrust forward. It takes a toll on a poet to go to his desk every day in the full knowledge that he'll never find a rhyme for Moynihan.

"Maybe the President is aware of how difficult it is but doesn't think that's any excuse for some of the poems you've written about him," my wife said.

Of course. Maybe the President was offended by some of the poems I wrote in the form of blues songs for Wanderin' Willie Clinton--I've Got the Movin' to the Middle 'Cause It's Slippery on the Edges Blues, for instance, or I've Got the Sorry That I Did Whatever Might Offend You Blues. Maybe he's aware that I've been scouring my brain for something that rhymes with Mochtar Riady.

"Maybe they're just unwilling to risk the possibility that I might recite a good-night poem I did for the White House called Twinkle, Twinkle, Kenneth Starr," I said. "Maybe they'd just as soon play it safe with an Arkansas poet who would presumably lean toward Arkansas themes--the curative waters of Eureka Springs, say, or the custom of drinking Coke with goobers floating in it. I'm beginning to feel better already."