Getting Cancelled in Riyadh Is No Laughing Matter
by Marco Katz Montiel / September 28th, 2025
Welcome to the Riyadh Comedy Fest
New and improved for Twenty-Twenty-Five!
With great comic talent they will be blessed,
And if they’re careful, they’ll all stay alive
Look at what happened to a journalist
Who posted—anonymously—online.
Whatever humor Saudi censors missed,
The joke was on them, but not the punchline.
Tim Dillon says he’ll get three-fifteen grand,
But more famous comics like Dave Chapelle
Will get one-point-six million just to stand
Up and tell jokes that they hope will go well.
Alas, Turki al-Jasser got muted.
Jokers get rich, newshounds executed.
Marco Katz Montiel composes poetry and prose in Spanish, English, and musical notes. He went to college late, and then alienated one university by publishing about bigotry on campus and got kicked to the curb by two others for his union activities. Still, Marco managed to graduate and even publish a book on music and literature with Palgrave. His essays, poems, and stories appear in
Ploughshares,
Jerry Jazz Music,
English Studies in Latin America,
Copihue Poetry,
Camino Real,
WestWard Quarterly,
Lowestoft Chronicle,
Dissident Voice, and in the anthologies
Cartas de desamor y otras adicciones,
There’s No Place, and the
Capital City Press Anthology.
Read other articles by Marco Katz, or
visit Marco Katz's website.
This article was posted on Sunday, September 28th, 2025 at 8:00am and is filed under Poetry.
