The Book Thief By Brenton Booth

I was at a party at an ocean 

front house. There were lots 

of people there. One of them 

had acted in an adaptation of 

Raymond Carvers, "So Much 

Water, So Close to Home”.

Everyone was drinking,

though he didn’t touch a drop.

And kept talking to anyone

he could, in the loudest, 

most certain voice possible

about the film, and Raymond

Carver. I avoided him 

successfully until Tina told 

him I was a writer. With that, 

he cornered me and asked if I 

had read Carver and seen the 

film. I thought it was the 

worst adaptation ever made 

of a Carver story, and his acting 

was terrible. I told him I hadn’t.

“Well, no wonder you are

unpublished!” he said in a 

disgusted tone. I thanked him 

and got another drink. The next 

day I wrote this poem, and who 

knows, maybe it will be turned 

into a film one day. And he 

can ruin it as well.

Brenton Booth lives in Sydney, Australia. Poetry of his has appeared in Gargoyle, New York Quarterly, North Dakota Quarterly, Chiron Review, Main Street Rag, Naugatuck River Review, Heavy Feather Review, and Nerve Cowboy. He has two full length collections available from Epic Rites Press.