#75 Kevin Brophy ‘The theory and methodology of writing an application for a grant’

Sir,

I apply to your eminent committee

for another whole day of this fiddling

with verse. I know how severely your committee

sits and how over-qualified for making decisions

your committee must have become

over the years. I know you think anyone

could be writing these so-called poems

for a living while paying no tax on them.

I have no referees worth the title and my dog

is my only witness. I am herewith applying for

let’s say another year and a bit longer

because believe it or not there are many more

poems to be written if we are ever to be

convinced of our ‘shrivelled vulnerability’ .

I pray your committee will suffer some moments

of inattention, and carelessly grant me everything

I have asked for and a year or two more.

I am hoping your chairman (he will be a man)

is impatient to get out to lunch before my budget

makes him nauseous and before the coming storm

comes.