Poetry for Honorary Degree

Honorary Degree (2025)

 By: Vince Gotera

Three men in robes of velvet and satin,

beneath an American Gothic high window, 

play out an age-old tableau: awarding 

an academic prize to a person of great note.

It’s rather like the Wizard of Oz bestowing

a medal on the Scarecrow for his smarts.

The man on the left is handing a diploma

to the one in the center, a rotund man

who, most agree, looks like Grant Wood 

himself. The man on the right is beginning

to drape a velveteen hood over Grant,

which mirrors the shape of the window, 

itself an echo of his most famous painting.

This lithograph seems clearly a send-up 

of the whole honorary degree custom. 

Wood’s avatar, placed right in the middle,

has the mischievous look of a farmboy

who’d rather be on a riverbank fishing. 

A brown trout would be a better catch

than that diploma or that fancy hood.