home this issue archives editorial board contact us search issues

Vol. XX No. 5
May / June 2008

contents

	Editorial Financing Undergraduate Education
	MIT Faculty Survey: It's About Time
	Berwick, Lee, and Orlin Elected to FNL Editorial Board
	From The Faculty Chair Reconsidering the Value of Service to MIT
	Confidentiality in Recruitment, Promotion, and Tenure Reviews
	Provost Announces Faculty Renewal Program
	Endowment Spending Policy at MIT
	A New Approach to MIT's Financial Planning
	A Primer on Indirect Costs
	Changes in Engineering Education
	Anthropologists Express Concern Over Government Plan to Support Military-Related Research in Universities
	Reflections on Nominations and Elections for Faculty Officers and Commmittees at MIT
	Initiative on Faculty Race and Diversity: Research Team and Effort Launched
	MIT Poetry The Man I Killed; Lise
	Creating a Culture of Communication: Assessing the Implementation of the Undergraduate Communication Requirement
	The Vision Thing
	Lerman Now Dean for Graduate Education
	Letters The Spellings Commission Backs Off
	Letters Who Should Be Allowed to Speak at Faculty Meetings?
	M.I.T. Numbers from the 2008 Faculty Survey: Reasonableness of Workload
	M.I.T. Numbers from the 2008 Faculty Survey: Satisfaction with . . .
	M.I.T. Numbers from the 2008 Faculty Survey: Sources of Stress
	Printable Version

MIT Poetry

David Thorburn

THE MAN I KILLED

was in his early 30s, rosaceous,
pocky, the Checker
on a Newark pier. He said

I'll be respected
by New Jersey turds
like you reporters

and these Hoboken wankers
still wearing bog shit.
Don't you get it?

I said No pictures.
Later, off the wharf
the camera guy

used a telephoto lens
as I pointed, for my byline story,
Wildcat Strikers

Shut Port Newark.
The next week they found him
floating near a buoy

dead in Bayonne harbor
in a mess of bootleg whiskey
and my story in the paper.

LISE

Seeing the MGM lion roar
Lise complains she's seen this show before.

My father-in-law's live-in caretaker,
Haitian, tout douleur,

She knows Seventh Day Adventist lore
The perfidy of men, how to cure

Oppressive itching. Her
Cooking doesn't please him any more

But he likes her lilting French, her hair
And gentle hands, her living soapy spoor.

David Thorburn leaves the editorial board of the FNL with this issue but has agreed to continue as poetry editor. He is Professor of Literature and Director of the MIT Communications Forum. The above poems were first published in The Atlantic ("Lise") and in Slate ("The Man I Killed") and are reprinted by permission.

	Back to top
	Send your comments

home this issue archives editorial board contact us faculty website