John Emil Vincent
The Dancing Plague of 1518
It was like a junior high dance without the cafeteria.
As it worsened, concerned nobles sought medical advice. The doctors said: it wasn’t demons. Priests said: it wasn’t the stars. Astrologists were sure it was just a dumb fad. Without expert guidance, the nobles encouraged more dancing. They opened two guildhalls and a grainmarket, and constructed a sturdy wooden stage. The nobles were convinced the dancers would recover only if they danced night and day. Day and night. Danced til they dropped. And to increase the effectiveness of the treatment, they hired musicians, to keep everyone lively.
Nonetheless, they died one after the other, the musicians, disappointed that their art brought no joy, seemed in fact to lower a terrible ugly mood down on everyone. The dancers also soon after died having forgotten how to dance without music and having forgotten how to live without dancing. And the nobles lived on and wrote books and talked lots with colorful robes draping them and medals stacked one on the other round their necks, and they said: see: told you so, see. They said this for about five decades, no longer only noble but now, also, wise. Until they too fell silent.
This was, however, remember, back when it was fun to be dead.
John Emil Vincent is the author of the poetry collection Excitement Tax (DC Books, 2017). His scholarly monographs include John Ashbery and You: His Later Books (University of Georgia Press, 2007) and Queer Lyrics: Difficulty and Closure in American Poetry (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002). Vincent edited the volume After Spicer: Critical Essays (Wesleyan, 2011). His poems have appeared in The Cortland Review, Spork, failbetter, and Spinning Jenny, among other journals. Vincent has worked as an archivist with various literary estates, including John Ashbery’s Hudson house. He moved from the US to Canada with his partner to escape anti-immigrant and anti-gay sentiment.
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