Tuesday weirdness: All I know about poetry
June 28, 2016
All I know about poetry
(Part 1)
1. A rural location can easily slip into nineteenth century pastiche.
2. Some people still worry so much about form that they forget the poem part.
3. Shouting is neither good nor bad, but thought is quite worthwhile.
4. Better Byron than Wordsworth (see 1. above).
5. Those who avoid politics like herpes are often boring —
except for your rare and surprising, Emily-grade genius.
6. Birds are usually to be avoided like the word ‘roseate’ —
why write a poem about a feathered poem inevitably more complete?
(Exceptions include galahs, budgies, swamp dwellers, vultures, and anything else.)
7. Even an Irish accent doesn’t guarantee a good poem.
8. Gatekeepers are attracted to the mundanely beautiful.
9. Bathos is easy.
10. Most people regard poetry as a weird type of embroidery —
at least you only prick your soul on it.
Everyday Canberra scene
Now I hope you have been taking notes. There will probably not be a quiz next week, but still…In another life I was a hideous teacher in an old-school school.
Project 365 + 1, or my involvement in it, is drawing to a close at the end of the financial year, which is purely coincidental. 30 poems in 30 days. There should be a law against it!
Tuesday Poem: Walking out of the bar (Seventh…)
June 20, 2016
Walking out of the bar
(Seventh in a long series of nasty little poems)
There is a place that humour goes to die
like superannuated elephants.
The three part joke:
first this
than that
then punchline.
No final mild tingle
can ever atone
for the violence done to the ear
the appalling cringe of taking time
and parking a huge lump of
premeditation there.
People, mostly men,
dump these jokes like turds
to mark the boundaries of thought.
This is a funny! It moves like a funny!
So it must be funny!
You never shed boredom, m’dear.
You just packed it into a new shape;
a triangle of sludge, which you call
a joke. There is no jazz
to such a thing; no quip.
You play your lardy triangle
with a tardy limping tongue.
I listen for inadvertent puns,
or simply walk away.
Far better rude than bored,
says the woman in the beret,
unbearably self assured.
She’s walking out of the bar.
P.S. Cottier
Over at Project 365 + 1, I just posted a poem about the gym which I like quite a lot. It has the optimistic name ‘Four times a week’. Aspirational, one might say. This was poem number twenty for that project, so I will do another ten days. It makes the gym seem easy, I must say.
Upon reading Henning Mankell’s Wallander novels
It’s obvious —
the weather is the culprit.
Endless snow, or waiting for snow,
or discussing if it will snow,
or wading through medieval mud,
down hidden, slushy roads.
And those other nights
that are nights in name only,
quite midday bright.
The wonder is that there are Swedes
who don’t murder each other.
(Not to mention the Danes.)
P.S. Cottier
I read very little crime, and have been surprised how much I enjoy Henning Mankell’s Wallander novels, which I have read in a huge glut. Only one to go. So clever how he lets the reader know more than the detective for most of the books.
The Adventures of Aloysius Humblebrag
Aloysius Humblebrag knows little of finance
(Yet his shares would make a Malcolm weep).
Aloysius Humblebrag believes in process
(But his poems are only seen in the Best Places).
Aloysius Humblebrag hates blogs like football
(Though he once wrote a villanelle about football
called “Aiming For Smaller Posts.” So amusing!)
Aloysius loves the working classes
(in Theory, which is an island near Manus).
Aloysius doesn’t read much written by women
(All this stuff about gender is so tedious, he opines.)
Aloysius Humblebrag has composed his epitaph,
and just managed to edit it to tombstone size.
(We all pray that he will publish that very soon.
I, for one, will give it a most positive review.)
P.S. Cottier
We all know poets like Aloysius, I’m sure.
Now I am dragging my exhausted carcass off to try and also write a poem for 365 + 1. We’ll see if I can last a month; there are people who have been doing it for six months! That site is well worth a look, although I am finding the process of writing something every day difficult. Like Aloysius, I love the emphasis on process (really, in my case), but the process must be made concrete during this time, which is challenging. (The concrete need not be set, but it must at least be mixed and trowelled.)
This blog remains my true sweetheart.
Death to all poetry gardens!
In my garden I grow hebetude
just near the wistfulsteria.
The nodding fields of dilligafs
raise two-petal fingers,
yellowed with gorgeous nicotine.
(They hate the word roseate,
beloved of neat poetry gardeners.)
Then the rose ate the budgie,
and westringia strangled the cat.
P.S.Cottier
Looks a tad roseate to me
I’ve become heartily sick of a certain type of Very Nice Poem which moves too easily between description of nature as a mere pretty thing and the poet’s (often fairly tedious) personal reflections. Doesn’t mean I won’t write one again, but I will slap myself with a tulip as I do so.
In June I will be attempting to write a poem a day at another site; more on that soon. I’ll also keep posting at least once a week here. So now I’m off to tend the worm-poem farm, to help with the fervid compostition.
Next week: Less puns.
PS Cottier 