‘Firing Truman Capote on a Snowy Evening’ by Con Chapman

Truman Capote was fired from his job as a copy boy for The New Yorker after he angered Robert Frost.

Whose kid this is, I do not know,
He seems to have a job here, though.
He’s irritating, and quite fey,
If they ask me, he’s got to go.

He putters about the place all day,
and never runs out of things to say.
He wants to write—give me a break!
I truly wish he’d go away.

He gives his little head a shake
When he points out my rare mistake,
I glare at him, the little creep,
A budding novelist, on the make.

The New Yorker’s a place where one can sleep
for years on end, not earning his keep,
but I’m stuck with this little (bleep).
It’s quite enough to make one weep.

Con Chapman is a Boston-area writer whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe and The Boston Herald, among other print publications.  He is the author of “poetry is kind of important,” a book of humor about poetry, and “The Girl With the Cullender on Her Head,” a collection of light verse.  He is currently writing a biography of Johnny Hodges, Duke Ellington’s alto sax player, for Oxford University Press.