A Q&A with the author Q: Your last collection, Love Poems for Anxious People, came out at almost the exact same time the coronavirus hit the United States. Now you have Love Poems for the Office and many offices are either closed or at least radically changed. Should you stop writing books? A: That''s a great question, and you are not the first person to suggest that (my publisher, friends, readers, my parents). Q: What will your next untimely book title be? A: Love Poems for the Apocalypse. Q: I read your previous collection, Love Poems for Anxious People. A: Thank you. Q: I''m joking. I didn''t.

A: Oh. Q: Why offices? A: The idea was my editor''s. My initial idea, Love Poems for Middle-Aged Poets Who Wish They Had Gone into Finance Instead of Poetry Because Now They Have Almost No Money in the Bank and Are Royally Screwed was rejected by my publisher. Q: Have you ever worked in an office? A: No, but I''ve certainly applied many times. As yet, I''ve not heard back. Q: What you''ve done in this book is take the mundane world of the office and turn that world into mundane poems. A: I think that''s exactly right. Q: You have been called the greatest poet of your generation.

What''s that like? A: I have? I hadn''t heard that. Q: Wait. Sorry. That was Mary Oliver who was called the greatest poet of her generation. No one has called you anything except for some very bad names on Goodreads. Want to hear some of them? A: I''ll pass. Hold the elevator? If I am honest I did see you holding those two coffees a file wedged under one arm. Jill, right? So let me explain what happened there, Jill.

I was kind of in a rush to get back to my desk, I mean. Not to a meeting or anything. Just to eat my lunch and simply space out and watch YouTube. So I had been standing in that elevator a good seven seconds which can feel like a long time in an elevator. And I''d pressed the close door button a few times (maybe ten?) when I saw you shuffling toward the elevator smiling eyes wide as if to say Hold the door? Please don''t take this as a criticism but you are a slow walker, Jill. Also the doors had started to close in large part because I was pressing the close door button but making it look like I was pressing the open door button while making a face like How do these crazy buttons work?!! This is so complicated! Get the next elevator, Jill. Zoom calls in the time of coronavirus (part 1) Mary is sitting on her Peloton pedaling and talking. Ben is in his car waiting to go into a car wash.

Terry is in his daughter''s room surrounded by pink stuffed animals. Greg is taking a shower which makes it hard to hear him. No one cares. It''s Zoom. Zoom is from the Greek word for no one gives a fuck anymore. Shakespeare never used the word "ping" and neither should you When you say ping me I want to punch you. It''s true. Bio break, too.

It makes me cringe. And if I am being honest I don''t care about your ducks or the row they''re in. I don''t know what net-net means unless it''s being said by an excited tennis announcer. Come to think of it let''s not circle back or drill down or take a deep dive or take it offline or level the playing field or create action items and honestly I don''t care if this won''t scale and may I add that going forward I would like to park this project. And this job. I quit. Now. Sorry.

I have a hard stop. A review of the office holiday party (from the police report) The food ran out. That was the problem. The booze didn''t, though. That was also part of the problem. Kissing people was another part of the problem. In all there were a lot of parts to the overall problem. Another significant problem was that I was dancing alone (according to eyewitnesses) and spinning and singing a song I had made up Take your pants off! C''mon, everybody, take your pants off! And then, according to depositions I performed a spinning move of such force that I somehow flung myself off the dance floor and into a table of several women from accounting who were chatting with the CFO breaking the table and then throwing up on myself and the CFO.

I think that was the main problem. Still. Prior to that it was one of the better holiday parties. Whose meeting is this? After we had all filed in found a seat made some small talk someone said I''m sorry but whose meeting is this? Someone asked if it was Cindy''s meeting. But Cindy said she thought it was Jagdish''s meeting. Jagdish seemed confused and said it was Alan''s. Alan wasn''t there so it probably wasn''t his meeting. Gary asked if it could have been a mistake and then laughed too loud and got embarrassed and thought about crying but didn''t.

Jagdish said it couldn''t be a mistake, that it was on his calendar. Cindy seemed super annoyed and said if it was on your calendar to jump off the building would you do it, Jagdish? It got quiet after that during which everyone wondered what the point of this meeting was what the point of any meeting was for that matter wondered where time went and why they hadn''t done more with their lives. And as they filed silently out of the room to allow another meeting in no one had any idea how they would account for this on their time sheet. Why are you tanned? At the morning staff meeting someone asked me how I was feeling. I said great. So you''re better, they asked. Which is when I remembered that I had called in sick the day before. Definitely better, I said.

Probably a twenty-four-hour bug. Was it a tanning bug? someone else asked. Because you look tan. Oh . this, I said. Yeah. I had a fever. So it could be that.

Fevers make you tanned? I said they could, in rare instances. But someone Googled that quickly and said that wasn''t a thing. You know what can make you tan is the sun, someone suggested. On a golf course, someone else added. I agreed that that was possible. But you were sick, they said. I was. I was sick.

So I wasn''t outside and certainly not on a golf course. Were you outside on a golf course? they asked. You can be sick in so many places, I said, though I wasn''t sure what I meant. So I added, You know how you can work from home? Well I have heard that you can be sick on a golf course. Were you sick on the golf course? they asked. I was nauseated on the front side, yes. Mostly because of my putting. I felt much better on the back nine.

Here comes Milo I quickly pick up the phone even though it hasn''t rung because Milo is coming. Uh-huh . okay . I understand I say to no one. Most people would wave leave understand. Not Milo. Milo leans against the high riser of my cubicle biting a nail smelling it a man with time on his hands. He is at work after all.

I point to the phone hand over the mouthpiece. What''s up, Milo? On a call. Milo examines all of his fingernails and I wonder if he has even heard me. Then he chuckles and says My weekend was crazy sick. (It''s Wednesday.) That''s great, I say. It''s just . I have this call.

He moves some files off the chair next to my desk and then sniffs my half-eaten sandwich. Who''s the call with? Milo asks. Umm . my oncologist, I say. Cool. I''ll wait. Team building It had been a long day of team-building exercises and I sort of thought we were on the same page as to how ridiculous it was. It turns out we were not on the same page.

Which may be why I did not catch you during the trust fall. I thought it would be funny. And it was. For me. Briefly. I never thought you would land so hard. Or that your head would make that sound. Or need two stitches.

Just as I never thought you would trust me as I had once trusted you to give me a a raise. Trust is a funny thing. Welcome to the group I am sure it will be fine that we are now working in the same group even though we hooked up a while back after an office party and then went out a couple of times but ended badly and then hooked up again when you said you were leaving the company but ended up staying and we ended badly again. Not to mention I have heard you are dating someone from finance now. How nice. Also. That idea you presented today? I hated it. What I would do differently if you weren''t my boss<.