“Zuckerberg’s Eulogy” by Chantel Daniels

November 22, 2024

Poetry Pause is the League of Canadian Poets’ daily poetry dispatch. Read “Zuckerberg’s Eulogy” by Chantel Daniels, part of the League’s Fresh Voices program. Due to its formatting, this poem is only available as an image.

Zuckerberg’s Eulogy

By Chantel Daniels

I won’t know it when my father dies
there will be no tearful plea to come
wait
by his bedside
for a final breath
or deathbed contrition
no legacy passed on to his oldest

there will be
secondhand information
an aunt will reach out or a cousin
will post something
on social media
it will be comprised
of possibly sincere
but entirely undeserved
platitudes

everyone’s better in death
but I think the bar is very low

there’ll be a handful of relatives I don’t know
posting condolences about “gods' hands” and “angels”
trite one liners
RIP Randy

I know that’s how it will happen because the algorithm keeps telling me
he’s "Someone You May Know"

my father is a Facebook friend suggestion (removed)

Chantel Daniels’s poetry has been longlisted by PulpLIT and The New Quarterly, and received an Honourable Mention for Arc Poetry’s June 2024’s Award of Awesomeness. She was awarded an Ontario Arts Council Recommender Grant in February 2024, and completed Humber College’s certificate program in Creative Writing, for which she was awarded a Letter of Distinction. Her writing has previously been published in online literary journals, and she is working on her third yet-to-be-published poetry collection.

Fresh Voices is a publication and workshop program created by and for the League’s associate members.

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