Our friend Marilyn Taylor is the poet laureate of Wisconsin as well as mostly a formalist, a so- called "New Traditionalist". Though hardly stuffy, as this excerpt from an old favorite about a retired midwestern lady totally in command of the situation, demonstrates.
From "Aunt Eudora in Paris":
Somewhere in this vast and graceful city
there stands a little café venerable;
Eudora finds its tiles and sideboards pretty
and seats herself behind a tiny table.
Thinking it an admirable venue
for practicing her skills in la francais,
Eudora spreads before herself a menu—
LaRousse a handy finger-lick away.
A waiter, expert in the art of sneering
creatively, the way Parisians do,
addresses her while fingering his earring:
Madame, we have no hamburgers for you.
Eudora lifts one eyebrow, pats her hair,
and with a queenly, autocratic look
says: Vas faire foutre a la vache, monsieur!
and turns again, serenely, to her book.
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