Around eight o'clock the poet arrived, accompanied by Dick and several other faculty members. Mr. Neary was a lanky man with a short neck and a web of wrinkles on his face, but he must have been quite handsome when he was young, as his Roman nose and pale green eyes suggested. They all sat down in the front row, which had been reserved for them. A moment later Dick went over to the podium. He introduced Mr. Neary briefly, enumerating the awards and grants the poet had garnered and calling him "a major poetic voice of our time."
Then Edward Neary took the microphone and began reading a long poem, "An Interpretation of Happiness," which he said he was still working on. His tone was languid and casual, as if he were talking to a few friends in a small room, but the audience was attentive. Now and then somebody would "huh" or "hah" in response to a playful line or a clever turn of phrase. Neary kept reading without lifting his head and seemed to have some difficulty concentrating, shifting his weight from leg to leg. His right hand rubbed his chin time and again. Whenever he did this, he'd muffle his voice a little.
Nan couldn't understand everything Neary was uttering. Soon he grew absentminded, looking around at the audience and noticing that some others were bored too. It took the poet at least twenty-five minutes to finish the poem. As he was flipping through a book, searching for another piece to read, a female student cried out, "Let us hear 'Tonight It's the Same Moon.' "
"Yes, read that, please," chimed in another young woman.
"All right," the poet said. "It's a love poem I wrote many years ago, for a girlfriend of mine whose name I've forgotten." The audience laughed while Mr. Neary grinned, running his fingers through his grizzled flaxen hair. "I guess I'm too old to write this kind of poetry anymore, but I'm going to read it anyway. Here it is." He lifted the book with one hand and began reading the poem with some emotion. Nan liked it very much. It was an elegy spoken by a young widow in memory of her late husband, lost in a recent plane crash. The cadence was supple and tender, in keeping with the pathos.
After that, Neary read seven or eight poems from different volumes. Then unhurriedly, he stacked his books together, indicating he was done. Dick stood up, clapping his hands. After a burst of applause, he announced, "Let's adjourn to the reception in the lobby, and Mr. Neary will be happy to autograph his books. Please join us for a glass of wine. Also, don't forget the colloquium Mr. Neary will give tomorrow afternoon, at three, in this room."
In the lobby Nan drank a cup of punch and ate a piece of cauliflower and a few squares of honeydew. Though Dick had announced there was wine, only some soft drinks were on the tables. Nan felt out of place here because he didn't know anybody except Dick, who was busy taking care of the poet's needs while talking with some people standing in line to get their books signed. Nan went up to him and said, "I'd better go."
"Don't you want to join us after this?" asked Dick.
"For what?"
"We'll have a drink somewhere. Come with me-we'll spend some time with Ed."
Nan agreed. He was curious about the poet, who seemed passionless, carefree, and a bit cynical, remarkably different from the ardent Sam Fisher. He went over to a table and picked up a small bunch of red grapes and stepped aside, waiting in a corner.
When the reception was over, Dick and a group of young women took Edward Neary to a bar just outside the campus. Nan tagged along and accompanied the poet all the way while Dick was talking and laughing with the five women walking ahead of them. Mr. Neary walked with a shuffling gait. He had been to China a few years before and talked to Nan about how hot it was in Beijing in August. He remembered fondly a young woman assigned by China 's Ministry of Culture to serve as his interpreter.
Then he asked Nan, "Do you happen to know Bao Yuan, an exiled Chinese poet living in New York?"
"Of coss I know him! We were a kind of friends and once worked togezzer at a journal."
"He's an interesting guy. He's been translating some of my poems."
"Reelly?"
"He also interviewed me." "Does he speak English now?"
"He had a young lady interpreting for us. He can read English but cannot speak it well."
Nan couldn't believe that Bao, despite his deplorable English, would attempt to translate Neary's poetry. He must have relied on someone to produce the notes first, from which he might be able to do the translation. "Where is he going to send zer poems? I mean, to which Chinese magazine?" Nan asked.
"He had six of them published in a journal called Foreign Letters."
"That's a prestigious monsly, very literary."
"So I've heard."
"I'm glad Bao is still writing poetry. He's also a painter."
"Yes, he showed me some of his work, very impressive. He has fine sensibility and a lot of talent. But the exile must have stunted his development considerably. He said he never had time to write the work he planned to do."
As they passed the side entrance of the university, Mr. Neary asked Nan about the average price of the houses in the Emory neighborhood, which he had seen on his way to the campus that afternoon. Many of them looked grand, built entirely of bricks. Though uncertain of the price, Nan ventured a figure, guessing upward of $400,000, but that didn't impress the poet. Mr. Neary said he owned a larger house than these in Newport, Rhode Island. Nan was surprised, because to his mind most poets were struggling artists without that kind of money.
In the bar Mr. Neary ordered beer, wine, chicken nuggets, and nachos sprinkled with cheddar cheese and bits of jalapeno. The young women were effervescent; apparently they all admired Neary's poetry. Laura, the tallest of them, with cloisonne bracelets on both wrists, smiled at the poet all the while, her eyes flashing. Emily, the only Asian woman among them, seemed shy, though she giggled happily and nudged her friends now and again. Her sweet face resembled a teenager's. Mr. Neary liked her and asked about her life in Atlanta and her family. Her parents had immigrated from Korea, but she was born and raised in Missouri. She had moved to Georgia three years earlier and liked it here. Mr. Neary thought she was Chinese, but she said her last name was Choi and considered herself Korean American.
The shortest of them, Anita, was a budding poet and middle school teacher. She could even quote Mr. Neary's lines with ease, which pleased the author greatly. The other two women, also fans of the poet, worked at Barnes amp; Noble. The five of them belonged to a poetry group and met regularly to read and discuss one another's poems. Nan said little and just listened to them.
As they were chatting and drinking, Mr. Neary grew louder and more talkative. He said he had been editing an anthology of poetry by young poets for a New York publisher, whose name he wouldn't disclose. He squinted at Dick, who smiled knowingly. Then he told the women, "My babysitter has been helping me sort out the poems. Without her I don't know how I could do it. I don't have time to read all the books and journals people send in. You should all show me your work. Nan, you should send me your poems too."
"I will do zat when I have somesing finished," Nan replied in earnest. But none of the women responded to the invitation enthusiastically. He wondered why they wouldn't jump at such an opportunity, since they were all writing poetry and must have been struggling to get published.