16. Billy Collins, "The Centrifuge"

The poem has a perfunctory feel, as though it had no reason for being written. We learn of people seeing a strange piece of machinery, ("difficult to describe what we felt") and later taking part in "a great historical discussion / that included science / as well as literature and the weather." (The weather, no less!). I wish I'd been there for the discussion, because it loses a lot in the retelling. "What did it mean? we all wondered openly." I wish all this dullness were somehow ironic, but it seems all wrong for a poem that is supposed to evoke a sense of enigmatic awe. ("These were not new questions, / but we asked them repeatedly and earnestly.") Maybe it's supposed to be a deadpan style that risks very little. There is some anecdotal potential that is not realized. To be very, very generous, I'll say 3 out of 10. This is the first truly crappy poem I've encountered so far.