 Hi, thanks for coming. Very excited. I've been chatting up with John Kenny, our author here for the evening, and I think we're in for a fun night, so welcome to Bear Palm Books for a reading of Love Poems for Married People. If you're not married, you shouldn't be here. Just kidding. That's cool. These poems are for everybody. And like as I said, we're welcoming author John Kenny. Love Poems for Married People is one of those rare gems. Hilarious and insightful, honest and accessible. Each time I open the book and discover a poem, I end up in tears from laughter, of course. I'm so excited to hear him read some of these in person, and I hope he reads some of my favorites, like, why are you in the shower with me? What's the plan for dinner? I'm sure we've all heard. You reach for me in the middle of the night. And the ever so honest couples counseling series, the whole series of the stories. Even just from the titles, you can see how many couples married or not, or with kids or not, can relate. We do have copies of Love Poems for Married People available at the front counter, and John will sign your books after the reading and Q&A. A few housekeeping items. The bathroom is located at the back of the store to the right. And the front door is now locked, and the back door, John thinks this is funny. You have to stay no matter how bad it is. The back door is open in case you need to leave. If you haven't already, please mute or turn off your cell phones. I'd like to let you know about some upcoming Bear Pond events. Next week on Tuesday, April 9th, we host contributing editor of Harper's Magazine, Garrett Keeser, for a book launch of his debut book of poetry when the world pushes back. And on Tuesday, April 16th, we have a reading from the anthology, Healing the Divide, Poems of Kindness and Connection. And then on Tuesday, April 23rd, we welcome an event called In Defense of Butterflies, a migrant justice poetry reading with Niko Amadar, Cynthia Dewey-Oka, and Natalie Centers-Zapaco. You can find out about all of these events and more on our website, bearpondbooks.com, also on Facebook and Twitter at Bear Pond Books, or sign up for the newsletter. There is a sign-up sheet being passed around, thank you. I'd like to thank Orca Media, they're here filming tonight's event, and Poem City Montpelier, for featuring this event in their program. You can pick up a program right here in this display. A little about our guest this evening, John Kenny is the author of Talk to Me and Truth in Advertising, which won the Thurber Prize for American Humor. He has worked for many years as a copywriter and has also been a contributor to the New Yorker Magazine. Kenny lives in Brooklyn, New York, where we hope he is still happily married. Please help me welcome John Kenny. Is that okay? I see we've got some kids in the audience tonight. Do you guys like bad words? Your mom and dad pay you, and they... I'll pay you. So thank you, Samantha, yes. If you're not gonna use the amp, you can turn it off. Okay, is there feedback? Oh, the amp. Let me turn the amp off. Does that help? Yeah, thanks. Great, yeah. No worries at all. And if I'm ever talking too low, please keep it to yourself. So thank you to Samantha and to everyone at Bearpaul and Books, and all of you for coming out. It's great for me. Writers aren't asked out a lot to give you some sense. I live 317 miles from here, so it was nice to get the invite. As Samantha said, my name is Michelle Obama. I'm thrilled to read from Becoming. I've sold more than 10 million copies in five. So that's exciting. I noticed that in the time I had before, the reading that you take your poetry seriously here in Vermont, upcoming events, as Samantha said, include Healing the Divide, Homes of Kindness and Connection, as well as Garrett Keiser's debut collection, The World Pushes Back. So I feel I owe you a profound apology for what you're about to hear from me tonight. My work is like poetry, I think, in much the same way that Burger King resembles, he's farmed at table. So although I do think, if you've looked at some of the poet photos, I feel like I got the author poet photo right. You'll see that in the photo, I'm wearing a corduroy sports coat, and I'm staring sort of into the distance. The photo was taken in New York, and what I was thinking about were two things. One is my badly needed a toilet, and it was the corner of 18th and Broadway, and a man who wasn't wearing pants and just motivated. So I'm gonna read a few of the poems, and but I thought I don't know if there are any writers here, or aspiring writers or poets. I think it's really important to communicate with your audience as best you can, and try to understand where they're coming from. So I wanted to read a couple of reviews from some adoring fans from Amazon. Oh, good. Good reads. And these are actual reviews. This is from Kathy S., who titled her review, A Waste of Money. This book, and this is the quote, this book was the worst. First of all, it's not poetry, it's a book of ramblings on happy married people. What they're saying is true, but a sad state. We have been married for 47 years, very happily. Even my husband thought this book was without merit. Maybe it's an age difference. I wouldn't waste my money on it. Yeah. This is from Jax at Goodreads. Could have been a library book. She titled her review, No Love in These Poems. Based on the reviews, I expected the book to take an amusing look at marriage, but at least contain some love. Perhaps something my husband would enjoy reading, but there's nothing nice inferred. This was a complete waste of my time. My favorite was from not a person, but the Russell Public Library. Russell is either in Kansas or upstate New York. I imagine sort of the townspeople flying, someone typing furiously, holding torches. This is a direct quote. She titled it, I don't know why I thought it was a sheet, Hate Poems for Almost Divorced People. It's a much more accurate title. And this is, in all caps, the sentence, hated this book so much. I feel sorry for the person who wrote it. What a sad way to be together. I've been married for 20 years, and I realize marriage is not all butterflies and rainbows, a metaphor I don't love. But this is ridiculous. If you want a book that is accurate to the title, don't get this one, it's crap. So, good times. So I just wanted to give you a tiny bit of background about the book. As Samantha said, I've written a couple of novels, but as with all of the good ideas I have, it was not mine. It was someone else's. So I've contributed to The New Yorker Magazine for a number of years, and I had written a piece about three years ago called Valentine's Day Poems for Married People, and it got passed around a fair amount, and it would sort of pop up on The New Yorker's website every Valentine's Day. And so last June, I was at a cocktail reception, my publishers in New York. I don't do well at those kinds of things. I never seem to know anyone. Everyone sort of pairs off, and it's one of those things where you have to wear a name tag, and I don't know whether it's because I had had a couple of glasses of wine, but I thought it was like a party game, and so I wrote on my name tag Virginia Woolf. The problem is that it's sort of in the new world. Problem's not the right word, I think, opportunity, but in the new world, if you write that in sort of in Manhattan at a cocktail party, people have to, you know, they can't assume I don't identify as Virginia Woolf. So yeah, seriously, they can't say, ah. Or they're so, they're very respectful, so throughout the evening people would come up and sort of squint and look at my things, and say, it's very nice to meet you, Virginia. And so I'd be in conversation with them, and perhaps a friend of theirs would join, and they would turn and say in all seriousness, I'd like you to meet Virginia Woolf. And I asked her where the closest lighthouse was. Oh. Somebody, you got that. So at the party after the six or eight glasses of wine, my editor introduced me to a woman. I didn't read her. I should have read her name tag, and the woman said, my editor Sally said, John wrote Valentine's Day poems for married people, and the woman said, we should make a book of that. And I was like, that's funny. And so the next day my editor called and said, that was the head of Penguin Random House. She wants to make a book out of this, and she wants it soon. So I had six weeks to put it together. And that's while it was at 70 or so poems. And while I was editing the novel, and I had a day job, and two kids and a wife who decided that last summer was the perfect time to get a dog, which is when I discovered this sort of this amazing thing called Lexapro. And I don't know, I would advise. So just in terms of writing this, I'm not a poet. I never aspired to be a poet. In high school, I went away from a month to Ireland in the spring, and it was raining, and I thought I will be a poet. And I wrote some stuff, and it didn't make any sense. I have enormous respect for poets. I consider myself someone who's sort of poisoned in high school and college with being forced to read poetry. And I didn't get it. I think you have to come to it when you're ready, for me anyway. And much the same way when you read Shakespeare in high school and college, it's not meant to be read. It's meant to be experienced, right? So having to read the words, and then you see Kenneth Branagh do Henry the Fifth, and you're like, I get it now. I feel it now. And it's the same way for me with, I was late to the game with Mary Oliver. Five years ago, I heard the summer day, and I was like, oh, I get it. What I do is a very different thing. But so I was reading six, eight months ago in the New York Times, the obituary of J.P. Donnery, who wrote, among other things, The Ginger Man. And I was struck by a quote from him in the obituary. He said, it's on why he became a writer. And he said, one day, while innocently looking in the window of an old, established cheese shop in London, the definition of what writing is all about hit me. Writing is turning one's worst moments into money. So, I love that. So, the first noble truth of Buddhism is that life, and I think by extension marriage, is suffering. The second, I think, should be to make fun of that suffering. Sort of what's the point of this whole lunacy is if we can't do that. One of the great Indian stand-up comic Mahatma Gandhi once said, if I had no sense of humor, I would have long ago committed suicide. Charlie Chaplin said, to truly laugh, you must take your pain and play with it. And so, with that, I will read a few of my incredibly insipid poems, and I take requests. This first one is called, I honor you and our love, but I also lost track of time at a bar with my coworkers. In France, Sainte-Cassette was once sacrosanct, a euphemism for rendezvous, for that thing that men and women do, close your ears. But we are not in France, we are here in Montclair, New Jersey, and it is well past seven, and I promise to be home at six. And yes, that's booze on my breath. The guys and I had won fine three drinks after work, and apparently I've forgotten the milk, and the bread, and the pasta, and the pull-ups, and the allergy medicine. Why are you dressed up? Wait, today is Valentine's Day. I gotta go. It is important to note, as a very happily married man, I tried to write these all as the woman is, it's very important to me that you know that. In a conservative city like Montpelier. This is called, are you in the mood? I am, let's put the kids down, have a light dinner, shower, maybe not drink so much, and do that thing I would rather do with you than anyone else, lie in bed, and look at our iPhones. It's called our love. Our love is like the padlocks on the Pondésar in Paris. Thousands of locks, symbols of unbreakable love. Isn't that beautiful? Apparently though, all those locks are too heavy for the bridge. Did you hear this? I read it somewhere. The locks are weighing the bridge down. So you know what they're gonna do? They're taking them off with bolt cutters and throwing them in the trash. Isn't that beautiful too? So now that people aren't locked together anymore, they're free to maybe see other people. I thought that was interesting. This is why are you in the shower with me? None of these based on personal strength. Did the bathtub shrink? I asked because here we are, naked, showering together like we once did all the time. Remember, at the beginning, we would stand and talk, seals slipping by one another, a playful ease letting the other into the stream. Now, I'm not sure what you're doing in here. I'm freezing. Shampoo stinging my eyes. You just stepped on my foot. For the love of Christ who flushed the toilet. Because I'm being scalded a lot. Get out now. It was a nice idea though, honey. I didn't close the door. Again, they just come to me. This is called, is it possible you are sending me a sexy signal? The kids are finally down and you are looking at me in that way, tease, or are you just spacing out? Yep, you're just spacing out. You unzip your skirt and your baggy underpants while I ride way up on your head. How old are those anyway? You pull on some sweatpants and a t-shirt and a sweater and a fleece and I am not able to make out any contour of your body at all. I think you are sending me a signal in the way that married couples send each other signals. And just so we are clear, your signalling, I'm going to call my sister and order sushi, you should do something too. At the kitchen sink. I was feeling fondness for you as you gave me a shoulder massage at the sink. What a small, lovely surprise. And then you cupped my boobs and made a wah-wah note. And in an instant I felt disgust and sadness and regret. This is called, let's spice things up. That's what you said when we were ordering in the Mexican restaurant. I said, oh my god, are you serious? And you smiled and said, totally. Spicy is nice, you said, in a weird accent. But also a little embarrassed at the weird accent thing. And I said, it would have to be with a woman though, not a guy. And you said, what are you talking about? And I said, aren't you talking about having a threesome? You get a look on your face sometimes, and you got it here. And you said, I was talking about getting the mola and maybe some pico de gallo. To which you said, oh, to which I said, oh, okay. That's a good idea too. Oh, I'm going to read the next one. Some of our audience. No, no, no. I'll read the, I have to give credit to my editor, Sally Kim. I had originally written a very, very, very long, tedious poem called Couples Counseling. And she said, break it into four and sort of put it at different sections in the book. So I'll just read them all together. So this is Couples Counseling Part One. The couple's therapist urges us to repeat what each other has just said, okay? So I hear you saying that I am a terrible husband, man, and human being. Hold on, Roger, the therapist says. That's not what Amy said. Yes, but that's what I heard. Okay, but what she actually said was that she wanted you to listen more. Let's try to repeat the actual words and not our interpretation. Sorry, I wasn't listening. And I don't say that part out loud. Unfortunately, what I do say is, do you have Wi-Fi here? Couples Counseling Part Two. I acknowledge that I shouldn't have asked about Wi-Fi and I acknowledge that I wasn't listening to or respecting Amy. I would also like to acknowledge that I hate the word acknowledge. This is what I'm thinking about. Sorry, this is what I'm talking about, Amy says to the therapist, who then asks Amy to acknowledge her feelings by speaking directly to Roger. Fine, Roger, I'm hearing that from the tone of your voice you're exasperated and don't mean your acknowledgement. I don't, I say out loud, which is a surprise, as I thought I was only thinking it. Dickhead, you say. Amy, the therapist said, his name is Roger. Really, Amy asks, because he looks to me like a dickhead. You reach for me in the middle of the night. Shall I read that? Are you with the kids? I'm gonna wait on that. No, no, no, no, this is all this kid-friendly stuff. I should buy a copy. Give it to classmates. Not my kids. I'm gonna find another one. This is called upon reflection. I wish we had left my company holiday party a little earlier. We rode the elevator down with my boss, my new boss at the job I really like. You, my husband, drunk. Him, not so much. You stood so close to him, your elevator, your back to the elevator door. He looked uncomfortable. I cringed. Lovely party, he said to you, trying to pull himself back into the elevator wall. You're a lovely party, you said. It made no sense. Then you hugged him, with your head on his shoulder. And he said, oh my, while you sang softly, when a man loves a woman. So there's that. I'll read one more. Where is that poem? Apologize. Oh, what's for dinner? This is called What's the Plan for Dinner. Like swallows to Capistrano, you call me each afternoon from work. Quick point on the swallows thing. I'm not saying swallows make calls. I guess I just mean they perform on schedule the same damned ritual. Hey, what's up, you say? Distracted. Reading an email. What's the plan for dinner? I don't know, I say. Looking at a purse on the fossil website. I'm at work, like you. Chicken, you ask. Toggling over to the body issue of ESPN.com. Sure, I say. Having already forgotten about what we're talking about. When you get ice cream, you ask. Clicking over to Huffington Post. So I'm getting the dinner, then, I say. Enhancing a picture of Ryan Reynolds. I can get it, you say. Drained of energy as if you've just received news of a death. We have leftover pasta, I say. Picturing Ryan Reynolds naked in a four-seasons hotel room. I hate leftovers, you say. Swallow-like, so predictable. I bet Ryan Reynolds isn't predictable. Except I say that last part out loud. Yeah. This is called Mother's Day. I didn't know who Marie Kondo was. Author of the international bestseller, the life-changing magic of tidying up. What a funny, funny Mother's Day gift that was. How we should fold clothes with love. How we should keep only things that spark joy. You know what doesn't spark joy for me a lot of times? You. Keep you. And the card was a thoughtful touch. You know what you are, it said? On the wacky cover? A mother. And you signed it, your husband Russell. That certainly sparked something for me. Do you give advice? I tried desperately not to. What's the question? Well, my wife has a birthday in a week, and the question is, is this a good present for her? This is a spectacular present for her. Yeah. No, I would definitely, I would definitely get this and a real Book of Hope. I would get Mary Oliver and John Penney, two names that have never ever been said before. Probably never. What grade are you in? First. You are? Are you doing any writing now in school? Yeah. Is it hard? I think it's really hard. It's tiring, right? Is it kind of fun sometimes? Yeah. What do you like about it? I know. Do you get to just imagine anything you want? I kind of like that part. Do you know what's tough? Criticism. Don't let anyone tell you that. He had his little book going on before. Really? And he was, wow, good for you. You want to talk about your next project? Sure, yeah. I was very fortunate with this. I think it came out at the right time and a fellow from all things considered Ariesha Piero was kind enough to interview me and if you ever wondered about the power of NPR they aired the interview on a Friday afternoon before Valentine's Day at about, it's drive time I guess? 5, 5, 30, something like that. My wife and I were meeting some friends for dinner and not that I check Amazon every 15 minutes to see where the book is wrapped. It was right at 6,000 or something, 6,500 which is probably 3,000 and 5,000. So we go out to dinner and we get home at about 10 when I check Amazon, the book's number 5 on Amazon and I was like refresh and based on that it was astounding how many people from NPR had just gone but I have written to those women who hated the book sending their money back. Any poets here? Fledgling poets? Really? I'm embarrassed to be in your company. Real poets. I tried to make mine at least look like poets, if not some. Stay around till Friday come to my review. I love that. Wow, what is your name? George. That's very exciting. Everyone should come back for George's hand. That's very exciting. This is one of the rare book readings where I'm pushing another author's to some sense of how bad my poetry is. Any questions at all? Yes? So I'm imagining that a poem is like a funny thought but a thought that you have and you just sort of flesh it out a little bit where it's like an essay or a book with lots of thoughts all put together. Am I on the right track at all? Is it a different process? I tend to be a burst writer. I will certainly try to sit down and slog it out but the good days for me are when it's just whether that's just a poem some of them sort of fully formed that's not most of the time. Most of the time it's you have an idea and then in your head it's really funny and the distance from there to there that's terrible. Why didn't that come out? The words just aren't working and this was much harder than I thought it would be. It's just a few words on a page but it was I think that's what makes poetry so sort of amazing to me is that it finds the real poetry finds the ineffable. It's like I felt that. That touches something. For these, I find funny very hard to do and it's just the number of drafts to get these right was it was hard. It was also a crazy six weeks to get it done. As for the because I also have this novel which is sort of going the other way down the Amazon list that's you know I had an idea in my head. It was a father-daughter story and I wrote the ending. It was the first thing I did was write the ending and then you map it out. Yeah, the novel thing I would not advise you. It's painful but it's oddly enjoyable because you live with these people for a couple of years and they sounds cliche but they do surprise you they tend to write themselves you know when you are into the characters they write their own dialogue in a way. You know on those good moments where you write a scene where you're like that feels right. These poems you said you like to reverse did you stick with one until you get it clean? No. I stuck with it if it felt good if it was starting to feel bad and not funny because there's just nothing worse to me like if it's just not funny I mean I probably wrote 110 and we killed a lot a lot because they're just I dated a comedian she said she had a rule for writing and she said it makes me laugh out loud it's funny but if I say to myself that's fine that's good it's just you've got a and there were plenty of these that just were sort of And so you were working with an editor as you were going through the drafts? Mostly my wife who's a super tough audience very very very dry sense of humor you know does not suffer fools and except for me but she was a great audience she was really good because we would we have this little space on our roof desk we'd go up last summer and would sit there with coffee in the morning and she was you know I sit there like a small dog like waiting for her reaction and she's just like no no no and I trust her a thousand percent so she's the audience and so she's just a picture she would say I'm just like paint your own picture but I did I dedicated I don't know if you guys have dedication it's a bunch of hyper strikes for Barbara there's a line through that Karen Pam line through that Miss France there's a line through that Claudine there's a line through that Ramon there's a line through that and then but I did write not a real poem but I did at the very end to surprise her I wrote something that was not funny so and her lawyers say she really did you see the the head of random house again after it came out you said you had a message I got a very lovely email from her saying I was only kidding here here in Virginia I was the writer there is one there is one called our love is tested in traffic but we should exchange emails because they have asked me to write a follow-up that would come out now and I'm going to write a follow-up that would come out next December called love poems for people with children we're happy to share some of our moments at mac.com we'll have to go through an editorial process before we hand them over these two seem perfect you know what today I was driving back to a resort with a lieutenant governor who was very tired so I offered to drive him on the way back we're going to argue about it I'll take my own direction I'll go to sleep I'll drive have you ever thought about doing comedy because this is like a hop-skipping a jump from a comedy routine all you need to do is tie it together in a narrative that comes back to a punchline stand up I have friends who do it and I found some open mic nights like carolines and stuff and it's fun-ish, it's hard it's really hard high-off it's pretty cool but I like being alone in a room with a cup of coffee and my dog writing I'd write four people but I like the writing part it's a lot of fun isn't the right word I'm supposed to do I guess I like it thank you if I can go again my comment is you keep sort of denigrating your work in comparison to real poets and I know that's part of that is the shtick that you're doing but I don't think you need to do any denigration I think this is real poetry what do I know but it feels like that to me well thank you and honestly I make a point of saying at the end in the acknowledgments I don't have a deep well of knowledge about poetry I studied English literature in college but I came to poetry really late in life probably around the time I had kids where I grew up that was not late in life by the way things began to you saw the other side of things you saw the the preciousness of things and things became it's like someone it's like someone adjusted the aperture right on a camera it's like when you go to the better or worse thing that the optometrist does it seems like such a subtle thing but the acuity is so different and it's it's a very different thing I need a long run I need a lot of words and I think the best poets don't so thank you for the compliment but the people I thank at the end who matter to me the shameless Hanes of the world and David White Mary Oliver's that's major league baseball I can't get those pictures so it makes my mouth worse that's why I can't no one has asked if these are based on my wife this is the first reading I've had where no one's said that amazingly except for the baggy underwear but it's just like that's your problem this is online these are just she read and approved everyone she read and approved every there's no book without my wife did you avoid doing these cuts of that because you knew that not funny unless it's screw or smiley painfulish it's not funny otherwise otherwise it's sort of a day job I have worked for many years as a copywriter in advertising so my apologies so I've worked in New York at some big ad agencies so I do that and I was doing it full time for a long time it's incredibly time consuming so I'm taking this year to sort of write some other stuff and have been wildly unproductive in the first three months now that I have the time I do, yeah it's the first novel it's called Truth in Advertising it's based in an ad agency but it's largely about a terribly mixed up dysfunctional family it's hilarious so I would read it so so I do that I started kind of late so I've got little kids this guy's already bored he's just like wandered around any other I can't thank you enough for coming out it means a lot to me and I hope you enjoy it