Memoir

It has been
absolutely

fascinating
being me.

A unique
privilege.

Now my
whole life

lies ahead
of you.

No thanks
at all are

called for,
I assure you.

the pleasure
is all mine.

Editor’s note: It’s an old joke to make explicit the self-promotion implicit in memoir. Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo had sections titled “Why I Am So Clever” and “Why I Write Such Good Books.” What appeals to me in Dennis O’Driscoll’s variation on the theme is the brevity of the poem and the range of the narcissism, the sheer number of lies and half-truths and the ease with which you can hear someone saying each part of them, if never in order and always supposedly in jest. The poem is like a collage of lines from pompous cocktail parties, more coherent when he takes them out of place. —Adam Plunkett