Poem of the Day: ‘Fortunate Ones’
The poet Ernest Hilbert is an American treasure. A strange treasure, admittedly, and the nation’s literary establishment has never known quite known what to with him.
The poet Ernest Hilbert (born 1970) is an American treasure. A strange treasure, admittedly, and the nation’s literary establishment has never known quite known what to with him. He’s won any number of prizes, edited the Contemporary Poetry Review, and written for The New York Sun. In fact, today’s Poem of the Day, one of our lighter or more comic poems for a Wednesday, first appeared in the Sun.
It’s a loose sonnet, a form Hilbert has played with over the past two decades, suggesting rather than closing some of its rhymes and relying on creating an intuition of the sonnet rather than adhering strictly to the form. What makes it work particularly well in this poem is the back and forth of the poem: fortune-cookie promises, each followed by a parenthetical that walks it back in a gloriously grumpy addition of cynicism and misanthropy.
Fortunate Ones
by Ernest Hilbert
You will inherit large sums of money
(But someone dear to you will have to die first).
You will travel far and see the wide world
(And load yourself with debt; these things aren’t free).
You can relax now. You’ve been through the worst
(But it consumed your youth, and now you’re old).
You will enjoy many warm times with friends
(But they will sneak your booze and filch your smokes).
Your fortune is in some other cookie
(Hard to argue the message that one sends).
You are very important to your folks
(They will never let your life be easy).
A fortune is only worth what it covers
(Believe what you like, discard the others).
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With “Poem of the Day,” The New York Sun offers a daily portion of verse selected by Joseph Bottum with the help of the North Carolina poet Sally Thomas, the Sun’s associate poetry editor. Tied to the day, or the season, or just individual taste, the poems will be typically drawn from the lesser-known portion of the history of English verse. In the coming months we will be reaching out to contemporary poets for examples of current, primarily formalist work, to show that poetry can still serve as a delight to the ear, an instruction to the mind, and a tonic for the soul.
