– Tyra Banks –

I have learned so much from Tyra Banks
I know how stupid that sounds
This poem is going to be about Sir Gawain
and the Green Knight
According to Tyra, you are not
supposed to say “I am a janitor’s son” but
“I AM a janitor’s son” with the emphasis on the word “AM”
the way I have put it in caps and bolded it out right here
except this poem is about Gawain
and how he goes on a journey and how he claims
that he is stupid and small
to the Green Castle to sacrifice himself
for King Arthur and the knights of the round table
and Jourdan has just won the night in the “Tyra
Suite” which means
she can use the telephone as much as
she wants so she can call her boyfriend and all you
hear is Jourdan saying
“but I didn’t mean to kiss
him” and “I told you this is TV
and you have to do things you don’t
want to do” or she says some shit like that
that we’ve all heard and all the other models
are mad because she’s taking so much
time on the phone even though
technically she’s allowed to spend the whole hour
on the phone because she won
because she always wins because she’s white
and straight so everyone hates her so she
hates everyone and says “this is why I CHOOSE
NOT to have friends or interact with people”
which vaguely reminds me of the man
I’m sure we’ve almost all forgotten by now
who shot up the school in Santa Barbara
or was it San Diego or somewhere out there

From my observations though I am drunk
as I watch this since I only watch this show
to blow off steam after work
The contestants are stupid and poor
Jourdan says, “I don’t know what a Goth is
because I come from a small town with no
Blacks and few Hispanics”

And as I sit here on my bed drinking red wine
my babies sound asleep in the other room
I think I am so sick of rich
white people I don’t think that I can take it anymore
All the producers and managers
and cinematographers of our sad little bodies
and narratives that are supposed to read like
Gawain and The Green Knight but just end up
drinking and watching shows we
probably don’t want to watch because we are so attached
to our misery and capitalism is so attached
to our misery
that we can’t take it anymore

And if you are supposed to say I AM a janitor’s son
as Tyra suggests comforting the contestant
the actual janitor’s son
why is Tyra holding a photo
shoot in a trailer park and everyone is supposed
to put on fake Southern accents

even though in real life they are already poor
and one of the contestants
maybe Josh or the guy with the weave
whatever his name is says “I’ve got this one
because I grew up poor” and then Jourdan’s like
“I’ve got this because I only have
$3 in my bank

account” and now all the models are like
this is the one fashion shoot I can nail except
they don’t nail it because even though they are poor
in real life, on reality TV they
are not photographing
beautifully enough to pull off looking poor to
get assignments from the rich people who
want to extract as much as they can from their flesh and
they will go back home and some might commit

suicide or go back into their shitty relationships
Like Jourdan who got married at 18 and divorced at 19
and she keeps talking about it over and over as a plot
device or the contestant who is too afraid
to do the catwalk
underwater because of his PTSD

or the one who is afraid of life
sized stuffed animals and the producers are like
Part of being a winner is pushing through
your fear of the gigantic stuffed cow head
Even though all the other contestants
and everyone watching including me knows
that there’s no way in hell she’s going to win
because she’s too small looking and black
Just like the one gay man who can’t possibly
win and everyone knows it though on the surface
he is pretty nice to everyone
even though underneath it all
one senses a rage that’s probably the most
real thing in the show

So I promise that this poem isn’t going
to be another stupid
poem about pop culture and if I make it about Sir
Gawain then you will know that I have PhD
And that will carry us through the poem

about people who are too dumb to understand
the mirrored exploitation
they undergo as I sit here
in the very position of the contestant
Because I am of course also part of that
complex mirror as I am so drunk now and just gazing and gazing and gazing and gazing
At Jourdan’s long white legs which make me want

to either fuck shit up or go to the gym and sacrifice myself
To what? To capitalism? To Gawain? Being
blonde? Being gay? Being straight? Being
fucked? Being fucked up? Being poor? I’m so fucked up
Being trash? Being what?
The way Gawain is prepared to sacrifice
himself for the court I mean for the world

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SANDRA SIMONDS is the author of four books of poetry; Warsaw Bikini (Bloof Books, 2009), Mother Was a Tragic Girl (Cleveland State University Press, 2012), House of Ions, (Bloof Books, 2014) and The Glass Box (Saturnalia Books, 2015). She is an assistant professor of English and Humanities at Thomas University in Thomasville, Georgia.
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