Imagine my surprise to wake Thursday AM to a message from Thom il papa Francis that Mary Panza, R.M. Engelhardt & I had won the top 3 spots in the 2013 Metroland Annual Readers’ Poll for “Best Poet”. Then it dawned on me, I had not voted. I mean, I didn’t even know to vote. Somehow I missed the Metroland issues with the ballots — actually, I think I’ve missed the last 6 months of Metroland, that’s how irrelevant ole Metrobland has become to my life.
Those of you who are regular readers of this Blog will know that I annually (anally?) parse the results of the poll to determine how the voting came about. But this year I blew it. I didn’t even realize the voting had begun. It slipped by me, was under the radar, I didn’t notice, just plain forgot.
The results this year were that Rob & I tied for 2nd place, with Mary Panza on top (as we like her to be) in 1st place. The 3 of us have been circling about the Readers’ Poll for years, with the occasional flash-in-the-pan non-poets inserting themselves randomly in the list now & then. It proves the point that I’ve made year after year that it takes only a handful of votes to make the list. & as I’ve also said, each year I vote early & often for R.M. Engelhardt, so if I had voted this year as I had in the past there would be no tie: Rob would be #2 & I #3. Whatever.
But congratulations to us all, for if nothing else than for living long enough to become this 3-way of Albany poets (hmm?).
Now, as I do each time I appear on this list, I wonder where is my token? (as they once said in New York City about awards, “that & a token will get you on the subway”).
