He saw upon my desk my Ulysses,
The Students’ Annotated Ulysses,
And dubbed the tome a “Trojan Elephant”,
A “mansplained, condescending Ulysses.”
“Oh, gee! the OG Homeric hero
Who so rejoiced in Joyce’s Ulysses,
Would lose his timeless, withering wits,
Emasculated by this Ulysses.
Embark, unaided, on an odyssey
Through Joyce’s oceanic Ulysses
To stand the slightest chance to comprehend
The incomprehensible Ulysses.”
I nodded, nudged him back to where we were,
Before distracted by this Ulysses,
Explaining, annotating legalese
Less comprehensible than Ulysses.
Minakhi Misra 