Urbanity Poem by gershon hepner

Immune to the charms of the bourgeoisie,
attuned to the ones of urbanity,
I see what the former don’t want me to see,
discreet, and without much profanity,
and what I describe in my poems I think
is always quite fully compatible
with being urbane, not profane, as I shrink
the egos of those who’re getatable.
When the bourgeoise acts in a way that’s illicit,
I generally am sympathetic,
so long as my language can be as explicit,
as one needs when one’s work is poetic.

Anthony Lane, in the September 8,2008 New Yorker reviews “Mister Foe”:

Behind “Mister Foe” lies a bundle of Hitchcock highlights: “Psycho is here, of course, in the son’s contorted longings; “Rear Window” remains the template for all voyeurs; and there are whispers of “Rebecca” in the mysterious death by water of a first wife. McKenzie is wise enough, however, not to try to ape the manners of the Master as well as his themes; “Mister Foe” is shifty and jolting to look at, immune to the charms of urbanity, and sprinkled with a rash of plaintive songs, courtesy of bands such as Franz Ferdinand, and drums that knock like heartbeats… Some of the best things in the movie zip by, as if to offset the earnestness of its main conceit: blink and you’ll miss the blink of Kate’s eyelid, framed in an extreme closeup, as she fends off Hallam’s question “Is Alaisdair your boyfriend? ” with the lying rebuff “God, no, he’s got a wife and a kid.” The vigor and saltiness of her couplings with Alaisdair, like the dirty talk between her and Hallam, show that Mackenzie, the creator of “Young Adam” (2003) has lost none of his taste for the explicit.

9/3/08