The other day, I read a poem whose beginning I didn’t quite like. But, it was weird enough to keep me hooked to its very last line, which made me laugh out loud and reread the poem several times, appreciating it more and more with each go.

The piece is by poet Paul Violi, who published eleven collections of poetry during his lifetime and continues to be published after his death. Violi received two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, nearly every important poetry grant in the U.S. and taught English at Columbia University. So, he knew what he was doing.

When he chose to begin the poem below with “We,” or when he decided to put the word “Grammarians” in its title, or when he rambled for a bit, he knew what he was doing.  He was winding up to deliver a wildly unexpected punchline.

It always feels good to laugh, especially if this laughter is the result of a carefully crafted poem.

Appeal to the Grammarians

We, the naturally hopeful,

Need a simple sign

For the myriad ways we’re capsized.

We who love precise language

Need a finer way to convey

Disappointment and perplexity.

For speechlessness and all its inflections,

For up-ended expectations,

For every time we’re ambushed

By trivial or stupefying irony,

For pure incredulity, we need

The inverted exclamation point.

For the dropped smile, the limp handshake,

For whoever has just unwrapped a dumb gift

Or taken the first sip of a flat beer,

Or felt love or pond ice

Give way underfoot, we deserve it.

We need it for the air pocket, the scratch shot,

The child whose ball doesn’t bounce back,

The flat tire at journey’s outset,

The odyssey that ends up in Weehawken.

But mainly because I need it – here and now

As I sit outside the Caffe Reggio

Staring at my espresso and cannoli

After this middle-aged couple

Came strolling by and he suddenly

Veered and sneezed all over my table

And she said to him, “See, that’s why

I don’t like to eat outside.”

– Ana Maria Caballero, Zeteo Contributing Writer