This is a picture of Diogenes the Cynic, back in his Athenian days. Now in the modern age, he is
experiencing the oddities of modern life - especially academic...
In a theatre dark-paneled and columned like church
Diogenes entered intent on his search.
He wanted to listen to learned ones speak
And learn if their brainstuffs be solid or weak.
(His hopes were raised high by the previous sight
Of a scholarly face that was far from all right.)
Now as if in a race they were trying to lose,
The faculty dribbled alone or in twos,
Their heads in their phones, and their faces adaze,
They approached to their seats as you’d get through a maze.
The students sat silently watching them walk
And eager to catch it should one of them talk.
At the front, in a tie, a young student had stood,
With a paper in hand that he hoped would be good.
When the faculty seemed to be mostly in place
(Though texting and talking and staring in space)
The student began to present to the crowd.
“The insight I dare in these words to unshroud,”
He began, but he said nothing more, for a voice
Shouted “No!” and another “Wrong choice!”
“I do not understand!” “I am greatly confused!”
“What’s at stake for you here?” said a fifth voice bemused.
And the volleys of shouting they coursed through the room
Till the student stood down and accepted his doom.
Then a second in training approached to the stage
With a paper designed to look specially sage
And win her the praise of a smart thing to say.
She began, “I propose an unrecognized way…”
“Imprecise use of terms!” screamed a faculty then.
“I cannot understand!” “I’m confused yet again!”
“Not a soul has done that for the past thirty years!”
“Has the name of Foucault ever passed through your ears?”
“What’s at stake for you here?” And the screaming went on
Till the student was forced to give back the baton.
Hereupon there was rolled to the front a Dunk Booth
Of the sort that you see at a picnic for youth.
With contortions a third then ascended the seat
That loomed on the water he shortly would meet.
The faculty gathered the balls they would throw,
The doing of which was chaotic and slow,
But as soon as they got them they started to toss.
Now the youth, who was fearing an imminent loss,
Had begun on the paper before he sat down
And was racing to finish before he must drown.
But the faculty volleys were not very good
And the tennis balls flew on what vector they would.
They bounced off the speaker, they splashed in the pool,
Went sideways and backwards with no sort of rule.
The student flipped madly one page to the next;
The faculty started to get rather vexed.
“But we must not allow him a third page!” one said,
So a colleague more junior made brave steps ahead
As the balls were still flying and hit with the hand
The button controlling the fall of the stand.
The water splashed loud and the crowd cried hooray.
“What a splendid symposium we tasted today,”
They said one to the other while hasting away.
“Though I had some small quibbles with points that were made
In the end I joined in while the others hoorayed.”
So they left chatting brightly, both cheerful and frank,
As the student extracted himself from the tank.
Now as if from hypnosis Diogenes awoke
Enchanted by all that was done and was spoke.
Though expecting to laugh at the talks being bad,
He could think of no thing but the hearing they had.
So he asked the young man who was doused in the pool
On what theme he had wished to enlighten the school;
The boy answered with grateful relief in his smile
That the topic was worthy of nobody’s while;
But he got to two pages; no need that he whine;
“And Roger’s my name.” “And Diogenes mine.”
Andrew Horne
If you have any thoughts about this poem, Andrew Horne would like to hear them
