[Robert]: A Lipogram Apology by Monica Prince
[Robert]: A Lipogram Apology
Note: A lipogram is a type of Oulipian constraint where each stanza represents each letter in a word that is missing;
the stanza must use every other letter of the alphabet except the letter that’s missing. Another name for this is the beautiful outlaw.
While living in Milledgeville, GA,
seeking a diploma once again, the woman
who taught my advanced class—
consisting mainly of weekly sessions
one-on-one to discuss up to six
poems in development, with a few whole class
meetings enjoying poems penned
by famous poets—she told me to avoid
naming anyone, especially those accused
of violence. I quickly changed the opening line,
used to feedback like this, unfazed
by the caution implied—a potential lawsuit.
I start here because since that critique,
I never name my attackers, never name
partners, family members, even friends.
What a waste—every character in my verse
exists as a link, a faded line running between
them and the speaker. Yesterday,
I resisted the urge just barely—
switched the perspective, zapped
the specific, made it vague.
I know in music, saying people’s names
isn’t discouraged (Hey there, Delilah…
Roxanne, Roxanne… Alejandro,
Alejandro!), and poetry equals music
in certain circles. I know every song
you’ve written in my honor features
a clue, a secret wink at the amazing
love we share.
But still, as months stack up for us,
I stop my hand from forming that jovial graffiti
of your honorific. With sixty or a thousand
stanzas, all quaking in acclaim for you, for us,
for intimacy,
it’s a shock I say my beloved’s name
not even once. I wish this hesitance, issued
initially as legal advice but habituated now
as a law (pun unintended), was about
justice. But factually—it’s about anxiety,
my qualms about some anonymous someone
knowing you in the dozens of ways I claim to,
how you have always insisted this connection
belonged to no one but us, was nobody else’s business.
I know you’re unsurprised by a poem focused
on you, more lines promising forever, good sex,
and inside jokes. And even so, here I am,
inking a lipogram, a form poem keeping me
away from saying your name,
from designing my cursive
as proof I’m unafraid of consequences
possibly arriving if Heaven learns I love you
and you love me, like a precise shape carved in
a sapling’s bark, RB + MP—
nearly a full spelling, so close.
I know a poem, one expressly broken before beginning,
is no proxy for naming such a world, for simply
offering gospel. And I’m sorry: I can provide no more.
Only here—dawn or soon enough, lazy kisses
good morning, coffee programmed already,
a made bed, a clean shower, laundry folded,
fingers pressed on scalp running
clockwise, whispers from arousal
and never ceasing even in slumber—
I love you, I love you, I love you, [your name here].
Monica Prince teaches activist and performance writing at Susquehanna University, and serves as the managing editor for Santa Fe Writers Project.