Emily Dickinson Does Children’s Birthday Parties (and more outrageous gossip about your favorite poets)

We live in a TMZ’d tabloid world. Not only do I know everyone Jennifer Aniston’s slept with, but I know on a scale of one to ten if she actually enjoyed it. I know that Mel Gibson had no idea his wife had breast implants, that Lindsey Lohan can’t figure out when a relationship has ended and I’ve seen Britney Spears' naughty bits up close and so many other things that have scorched my retina for life.  

Other than a few suicides here and there, some minor drinking problems and a few trips to the nuthouse, poets so far have flown under the radar when it comes to their personal lives. I have yet to see W.S. Merwin on the cover of US Weekly for wrecking his car on the PCH or Margaret Atwood’s panty lines being mocked on the pages of Star Magazine. Well, it’s my duty and honor to change all that.

For better or worse, poets deserve the same spotlight as everyone else. Like paparazzi in search of Brad and Angie on a rickety boat off the South of France, I’ve dug up a few tidbits you might not have known about some of your favorite poets. For instance, did you know...

In 1969 during a conversation with her publisher, Maya Angelou admitted she couldn’t be absolutely sure why the caged bird sings, but thought it might be the new organic birdseed she had recently purchased.

In 1922 Robert Frost took the road less traveled and got lost.

Literally.

The Shaftsbury Vermont fire department spent twelve grueling hours searching for him. They eventually found him at Mrs. Hannah Whimmersby’s place about two miles away. She had plied him with warm whisky and a ham bone. The fire chief also noted her hair was unkempt and her skirt was unzipped.

Dorothy Parker may have been the wit of The Algonquin Roundtable but she rarely laughed. Except once when Robert Benchley asked her if she wanted to go make-out in the mens room. She laughed for several hours to which Mr. Benchley quipped “Seriously Dot, it wasn’t that funny.”

Frank O’Hara was said to have written ‘Lunch Poems’ during his lunch break while working at The Museum Of Modern Art. But according to Vlad Kippling, a hot dog vendor he frequented daily, they were much closer to dinner time poems.

Along with ‘Leaves Of Grass’, Walt Whitman also wrote several Motown hits for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell.

Robert Lowell had three legs, one of which was wooden. His daughter Amy said the third one was mostly for show.

ee cummings and A.A. Milne once refused to do a reading together.

T.S. Elliot’s original title for ‘The Waste Land’ was ‘People Aren’t Very Nice And We’re All Going To Die Soon So Don’t Bother Going To Church And Drink Up!”

Charles Bukowski toured the Midwest as an alto-soprano in a barber shop quartet called The Sing-a-lings.

Edgar Allan Poe slept with a night-light on. For obvious reasons.

Emily Dickinson enjoyed entertaining at children’s birthday parties. She was known for her realistic duck impersonations and a ventriloquist act with her dog Carlo whom she made appear to be reading her poems.

Sylvia Plath was voted both class clown and most flexible in her high school yearbook.

William Wadsworth Longfellow was actually only about five feet two inches.

In 1908 Vladimir Mayakovsky wrote a series of poems about jello while in prison. Most of them went unpublished except for “Jiggly, Jiggly, Jiggly, I’m In Hell” which was published in 1923.

Allen Ginsberg had a huge crush on Jack Kerouac. Jack Kerouac had a massive crush on Neal Cassady. William Burroughs had a huge crush on Ginsberg…wait, that’s all true.

Personally, I’ve always stuck to the old adage, ‘don’t do anything you can’t explain to the paramedics when they arrive.’ So far it’s served me well.

So far.

They’ll be here any minute.

How to write BAD POETRY in 19 easy steps!

You’re probably wondering why bad poetry?
More likely, you’re wondering why the words bad and poetry have seeped into your life like the stench from a broken septic tank.
I’m not one for divulging anything personal but I thought you should know…
 
I’m just in it for the money.





It’s a little known and closely guarded secret in the literary community that writing poetry can be wildly lucrative. Forget all those visions of Rimbaud and Verlaine living in abject poverty while strung out on absinthe and hashish. The truth is, most poets live more like Joan and Jackie Collins. Complete with man-servants ready to shave off their bunions and whip up a dry martini at 7:00am. Not to mention the liposuction and tantrums.




As a matter of fact, I’ve got my very own Swedish masseuse named Ingadolde sitting on me right now.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The sad truth is bad poetry doesn’t just write itself.
Although in the case of Jewel, I may be at a loss here. Seriously.

http://www.smoe.org/lists/jewel/angels/poetry.html#SaveTheLinoleum

Anyway, much like sculpting your first hideously deformed clay ashtray for father’s day in the third grade, bad poetry requires something that looks similar to talent, focus and attention--but isn’t. In fact you don’t actually have to be creative at all or even remotely interesting. Being gassy or drunk can give you the same feeling as well as the same results. And for less than half what you’d pay at a regular poetry store! So if you’re ready to become rich and famous and impossible to be around, then here are a few guidelines that have helped me on my way to fame and fortune in the world of incredibly suspect verse.

1. Iambic Pentameter can go f%#@ itself

2. Always use clunky words you don’t really know (e.g. incorrigible & verisimilitude)

3. Try to fit a knock-knock joke in whenever possible

4. If you must Haiku, please clean up after yourself

5. Irony isn’t dead but it has been hit on the head with a frying pan

6. Inappropriate rhyming will always save you (e.g. moose and Jews)

7. The good news is no one else knows what e.g. stands for either

8. If you run into writer's block, try writing in a foreign language you don’t speak. It's de rigueur

9. If you write a ‘concrete’ poem, try to use actual concrete or cement

10. If you accidentally use ‘alliteration’ simply type the letter A for the           duration of the poem. This gives it much more meaning.

11. Contrary to popular belief, people really do want to know what you had for breakfast as long as it’s in verse form

12. If you’re worried about meaning in your poem, don’t. We’ll all be dead soon enough

13. When making a ‘list’ poem, be sure add toilet paper to it. No one likes to drip dry or use your clean hand towels next to the sink

14. Poems to imaginary childhood friends will most likely win you a Pulitzer

15. Don’t worry about your ‘audience’. They don’t give a crap about you either

16. The best poems are the ones you plagiarize (see previous blog entry)

17. It helps if you were dropped on your head as a child

18. Things you should know as a poet: Along with Leaves Of Grass, Walt Whitman also wrote several Motown hits for Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell

19. If you've been looking for your ‘voice’ as a poet and can't find it, there’s a good chance someone stole it on purpose

I do hope this helps.

And always remember, when the writing gets tough…
the tough fall apart and go crying to their therapist.

Plagiarism! The Fast And Easy Way To Write Poetry.

 
Things to do today:

 

-Pick up cat litter/toothpaste

-Return library books/More Jackie Collins!

- Try encapsulating beauty and passion in measure and elevate it to some kind of truth recognized by the subconscious as emotional sentiment distilled into words.

- Shoot myself out of a cannon in the backyard.

Seriously. It’s much easier than trying to write poetry.

Anything’s easier than writing poetry. Go ahead, put crowns on ALL of my teeth! What’s that, a giant bee hive? What are you waiting for? Let’em out! I’ll just stand here in my bikini. Up until now, writing poetry has been a lonely, angst –ridden affair full of self-loathing, doubt, terrible hangovers and an odd smell coming from one of the sofa cushions. Not anymore!

Now there’s a fast, fun and easy way to find your voice and empty your subconscious onto a blank piece of paper and it's called...

                             Plagiarism!

Poets have toiled away for centuries trying to find the perfect way to express the mysteries of the mind, the complexity of emotions, oh heck! a reason for the whole darn universe. Some of them have even died trying while everyone else was out playing volleyball. Now it’s time to sit back, relax and let your forebearers do all the work for you. No need to ruin relationships, drink yourself silly or hide from the IRS for the sake of art anymore. Plagiarism is the simplest way to write poetry, novels, short stories and even letters to the editor. 
 




No need to get stuck in the agony of creativity anymore!
No more insurmountable moments of distorted self-consciousness. No more elements of wonder and engagement with time. No more sifting through memory for lost moments that need to be expressed. No more dictionaries and thesauruses to make a fool of you. Most of all, no more critics! This is foolproof writing at its best. Every line, every word has already been perfectly chosen courtesy of someone else’s blood, sweat and tears! It’s so easy, even a very bad poet can do it. Here’s a little something I whipped up in less than 30 seconds!

 The Lonely Bliss Of Falling In Love With A Poem

 It's all I have to bring today

This, and my heart beside

This, and my heart, and all the fields 

so I went to the worst of bars hoping

to get killed but all I could do

was to get drunk again.

It is always a matter, my darling, 

Of life or death, as I had forgotten      

I wish what I wished you before, 

but harder. I have been to lots of parties

and acted perfectly disgraceful 

but I never actually collapsed

oh Lana Turner we love you get up

because the birthday of my life is come

my love is come to me. You look up 

at the world & go: oh and it set you going

like a fat gold watch. 

the midwife slapped your footsoles

and your bald cry took its place 

among the elements of the scenes

our dreams have painted and when you're advised 

what they symbolized we'll begin to feel 

acquainted. Each night now I tie 

ten dollars and your car key to my thigh.

See? 

Easy breazy. 

Emily Dickinson, Charles Bukowski, Robert Lowell, Frank O’Hara, Richard Wilbur, Sylvia Plath, Christina Rossetti, Eileen Myles and Dorothy Parker will NEVER know the difference. So have fun! And may all your literary dreams come true in less than an hour.

 

 I'd stay away from Rod McKuen though. 
Apparently he ‘s on to us.

Could You Help Me Out? I'm Just A Few Clowns Short Of A Circus

 

Writing is a lonely business. Lonelier than a port-o-potty cleaner at a truckstop in Nome, Alaska. It can suck you into a vortex of self-loathing that has you asking friends, "should I go on anti-depressants?"

The answer is yes, Susan. I suggest starting with 125 milligrams.

The days will seem lighter, the sun warmer, friends kinder, the world gentler. Your writing will flow like a Caribbean waterfall. Then, just like a bad acid trip, you'll begin to realize it still requires something akin to a plot, talent, hard work and sadly, structure. Goddamned-sonofabitch structure. And before you can say Brett Easton-Ellis, you'll be back to square one. That's why it might be best to give up those inane literary pursuits and consider going to...

Clown College!

 What better way to express the overwhelming creativity and joie de vivre that most writers have smoldering within us? Instead of clever, thinly veiled stories about your friends drinking problems and unexpected miscarriages, you can say what's on your mind with brightly colored balloon animals and ridiculously vague and inappropriate hand gestures. Not to mention a perfectly painted on smile that says, "I don't know where the hell I am, but I sure am having fun!"

Instead of inept reviews from random bloggers who thought the 'Twilight' series gave literature the boost it sorely needed, you'll get rave reviews from small children who, although frightened at first by the bad make-up and the smell of gin on your breath, will come to adore you, clinging to your leg like they're in the cereal isle at the Piggly-Wiggly, while begging their parents if  'Scott The Clown' can please! please! come and live with them.

And for a thin, brief moment, this actually sounds like a good idea.

What the heck? It's not like you have a relationship weighing you down. Turns out you're too 'moody' and no one really gets you. You haven't paid your rent in three months anyway. I'm sure your landlord will gladly help you pack up your meager belongings (which consist of a  ping-pong table and a copy of Faulkner's 'As I Lay Dying' you never actually read) and give you cab fare just to be sure you're on your merry way.

All I'm saying is, writing is hard. Clowning is fun. From now on, I'm choosing fun. Why should I spend my precious time agonizing over character development or a more mellifluous way to describe what's in my protagonists closet when I can learn how to juggle cantaloupe and the fine art of pulling string out of my nose. Not to mention the shoes!

Oh, what I wouldn't give to show up at my publishers office in those shoes to say fine, maybe Sophie's Choice as science fiction won't work, but who cares! I have a new life now. Sure, I'll still be tripping, falling and bumping into walls just like you said, but this time it's on my terms.

 And I'll be getting paid.

For once.

http://www.ohiocollegeclowningarts.com/curriculum.html

"Writers are a little below clowns and a little above trained seals." -John Steinbeck

Slang-Whangers In A Sonofabitch Stew

One of the fun things about writing is research or more precisely "research".  Thinly disguised as the things I simply MUST know about my characters that can keep me 'barkin' at a knot' for hours. More importantly, wasting time is a joy when you're on a deadline.  For instance, a character, although she lives in the present time and grew up in New York, enjoys speaking in old west slang. And who doesn't? Oh, the hours of fun finding ridiculous slang for her to spew into dialogue for no apparent reason. Here are a few gems you might enjoy:

A Hog-Killin' Time - A real good time. "We went to the Rodeo Dance and had us a hog-killin' time."

Airin' the Paunch - Vomit, throw-up, regurgitate. He's "airing the paunch" after a heavy bout of drinking.

Barkin' at a knot - Doing something useless; wasting your time, trying something impossible.

Blacksmithing - Pimping for a prostitute.

Buckle Bunnies - Female groupies who follow and befriend rodeo riders.

Excuse-me-ma'am - A bump in the road.

Family Disturbance - Whiskey

Lunger - Slang for someone with tuberculosis.

Hot as a Whorehouse on Nickel Night - Damned hot.

Shoot the Crow - Obtain a drink in a saloon and leave without paying.

Shove the queer - To pass counterfeit money.

Sossle Or Sozzle - A lazy or sluttish woman.  

Sugar – Kiss or loving. "Honey, come over here and give your grandma some sugar." 

I've been using them in a sentence ever since and having more fun than a soft horse in a teapot! (A horse with lots of energy at a train station) Sure, I may be 'all down but nine' but atleast I can 'acknowledge the corn'.

Word to your mother.

 

Turns out I'm autodidactic. But don't worry, my doctor says it'll pass.

Back before radio and TV, poetry really was for the masses. Just ask my grandmother and Mark Twain. Back when you only had two choices for entertainment--you could have a staring contest with Myrtle the cow or you could read a book. Nowadays, you read a little Emily Dickinson in College, take a test and get on with your life. Poetry went the way of CB Radios which I miss terribly, good buddy.

In 10th grade I discovered 'THE COLLECTED POEMS OF E.E. CUMMINGS'. I was in heaven.
Who was this strange man with his surreal poems. It changed everything for me.
A new way of thinking. A new frame. A new house to live in. Metaphorically of course, Susan.
From there it was just a hop, skip and a joy to find Eliot, Pound, H.D., Ford, Stein, Lowell, Plath, Sexton, Rimbaud, Valery, Breton...the list goes on and on and on and on.
I may have written a book of 'Bad Poetry' indeed. But the good stuff is what brought me to it.
You can't deconstruct what isn't there. Or can you?
Here are some of my favorites I stopped and had a few drinks with along the way...


The Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls  
by ee cummings

the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls
are unbeautiful and have comfortable minds
(also, with the church's protestant blessings
daughters, unscented shapeless spirited)
they believe in Christ and Longfellow,both dead,
are invariably interested in so many things-
at the present writing one still finds
delighted fingers knitting for the is it Poles?
perhaps. While permanent faces coyly bandy
scandal of Mrs. N and Professor D
....the Cambridge ladies do not care,above
Cambridge if sometimes in its box of
sky lavender and cornerless, the
moon rattles like a fragment of angry candy

Mad Girl’s Love Song 
By Sylvia Plath

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

 I fancied you'd return the way you said,

But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"
 

Recipe For Happiness Khaborovsk Or Anyplace  
By Lawrence Ferlinghetti

One grand boulevard with trees

one grand cafe in the sun

 with strong black coffee in very small cups.

One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you.

One fine day

Love Poem 
By Louise Glück

There is always something to be made of pain.
Your mother knits.
She turns out scarves in every shade of red.
They were for Christmas, and they kept you warm
while she married over and over, taking you
along. How could it work,
when all those years she stored her
widowed heart as though the dead come back.
No wonder you are the way you are,
                                                                                      afraid of blood, your women
                                                                                      like one brick wall after another.

A Drinking Song 

By William Butler Yeats


Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That's all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

Love Calls Us To The Things Of This World

by Richard Wilbur

The eyes open to a cry of pulleys,
And spirited from sleep, the astounded
soul
Hangs for a moment bodiless and
simple
As false dawn.
Outside the open window
The morning air is all awash with
angels.

Some are in bed-sheets, some are
in blouses,

Some are in smocks: but truly there
they are.
Now they are rising together in calm
swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they
wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal
breathing;

Now they are flying in place,
conveying
The terrible speed of their
omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now
of a sudden
They swoon down in so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
The soul shrinks

From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every
blessed day,
And cries,
"Oh, let there be nothing on
earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising
steam
And clear dances done in the sight of
heaven."

Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world's hunks
and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter
love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns
and rises,

"Bring them down from their ruddy
gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs
of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be
undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure
floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult
balance." 

Real Life 
by Lucie Brock-Broido     
  
Soon the electrical wires will grow heavy under the snow.
I am thinking of fire of the possibility of fire & then moving

Across America in a car with a powder blue dashboard,
Moving to country music & the heart

Is torn a little more because the song says the truth.
Because in the thirty-six things that can happen

To people, men & women, women & women,
Men & men, in all these things the soul is bound

To be broken somewhere along the line,
That clove-scented, air-colored wanderer blushing

With no memory, no inkling & then proceeds
Across America

In the sap green of the tropics,
Toward the cadmium of a bitter sunrise to a new age,

At the white impossible ice hour, starving, 
Past the electric blue of the rivers melting down,

Above the nude, snuff, terra cotta, maybe fire,
Over the tiny fragile mound of finger bones

Of an Indian who died standing up, 
Through the heliotrope of a song about the sunset,

To live the thirty-six things & never comes home.

Carson McCullers

By Charles Bukowski

she died of alcoholism
wrapped in a blanket
on a deck chair
on an ocean
steamer.

all her books of
terrified loneliness

all her books about
the cruelty
of loveless love
 
were all that was left 
of her
 
as the strolling vacationer
                                                                               discovered her body

                                                                               notified the captain 

                                                                               and she was quickly dispatched
                                                                               to somewhere else
                                                                               on the ship

                                                                               as everything
                                                                               continued just
                                                                               as
                                                                              she had written it 

Lines For The Fortune Cookies By Frank O’Hara

I think you're wonderful and so does everyone else.

Just as Jackie Kennedy has a baby boy, so will you--even bigger.

You will meet a tall beautiful blonde stranger, and you will not say hello.

You will take a long trip and you will be very happy, though alone.

You will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.

In the beginning there was YOU--there will always be YOU, I guess.

You will write a great play and it will run for three performances.

Please phone The Village Voice immediately: they want to interview you.

Roger L. Stevens and Kermit Bloomgarden have their eyes on you.

Relax a little; one of your most celebrated nervous tics will be your undoing.

Your first volume of poetry will be published as soon as you finish it.

You may be a hit uptown, but downtown you're legendary!

Your walk has a musical quality which will bring you fame and fortune.  

 
 

You will eat cake

Who do you think you are, anyway? Jo Van Fleet?

You think your life is like Pirandello, but it's really like O'Neill.

A few dance lessons with James Waring and who knows? Maybe something will happen.

That's not a run in your stocking, it's a hand on your leg.

I realize you've lived in France, but that doesn't mean you know EVERYTHING!

You should wear white more often--it becomes you.

The next person to speak to you will have a very intriquing proposal to make.

A lot of people in this room wish they were you.

Have you been to Mike Goldberg's show? Al Leslie's? Lee Krasner's?

At times, your disinterestedness may seem insincere, to strangers.

Now that the election's over, what are you going to do with yourself?

You are a prisoner in a croissant factory and you love it.

You eat meat. Why do you eat meat?

Beyond the horizon there is a vale of gloom.

You too could be Premier of France, if only ... if only... 

America 
By Gertrude Stein

Once in English they said America.  Was it English to them.
Once they said Belgian.
We like a fog.
Do you for weather.
Are we brave.
Are we true.
Have we the national colour.
Can we stand ditches.
Can we mean well.
Do we talk together.
Have we red cross.
A great many people speak of feet.
And socks.
 

One Art   by Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

 


Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied.  It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

 



My Dream By Ogden Nash

This is my dream,
It is my own dream,
I dreamt it.
I dreamt that my hair was kempt.
Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it 


  





This World is not Conclusion. 
by Emily Dickinson

This World is not Conclusion.
A Species stands beyond --
Invisible, as Music --
But positive, as Sound --
It beckons, and it baffles --
Philosophy -- don't know --
And through a Riddle, at the last --
Sagacity, must go --
To guess it, puzzles scholars --
To gain it, Men have borne
Contempt of Generations
And Crucifixion, shown --
Faith slips -- and laughs, and rallies --
Blushes, if any see --
Plucks at a twig of Evidence --
And asks a Vane, the way --
Much Gesture, from the Pulpit Strong Hallelujahs roll --

Narcotics cannot still the Too

That nibbles at the soul -- 

Plato, Aristotle & That Girl Who Writes Bad Poetry...

 I like philosophy. Not as much as dentistry, but close. All that thinking. All those theories. All those notions about who the hell we are and why we do what we do. Endless questions with unknowable answers. It's like trying to put in an order at a McDonald's drive-thru.

Like bad poetry you say? Yes, Susan. Like bad poetry.
All those old men trying to make sense of reason, morals, knowledge and sometimes beauty while drinking absinthe. Lots of absinthe! Apparently it helps take the edge off. It does for me. My favorite philosophers were a branch of Sophist's who believed that nothing exists and if it did exist, it wasn't real. Ouch. Did anyone bother getting out of bed in ancient Greece? Anywhoodles, a few more bad poems so the day doesn't seem like a vortex of sin and degradation that sucks your soul out into a void off nothingness. Or...kittens sitting on a rainbow eating cotton candy. Your choice, of course.

Emanuelle Kant

Emanuelle Kant but
he probably could have
since it was entirely possible
at the time.


Neitzsche And The Ice-Cream Truck

God is dead.
But this atomic
berry blast popsicle
is heavenly.

Critical Thinking (Of You)

X equals my uptight girlfriend
Y equals fun-loving you
If X equals another day with that wing-nut
Y are we not having sex right now?

Let's Go A-Caroling! On Second Thought, Let's Drink Grain Alcohol Instead!

Since the holidays are still pointing and laughing at us from on top of our Christmas trees and nuns are out in the cold smoking cigarettes and getting ready for Jesus's big birthday party, (Shhh, it's a surprise this year!) I'm guessing there are strange relatives coming in and out of your bathroom doing lord knows what and Uncle Stan is hovering over you as you read this with whisky on his breath asking, "you got any porn on that thing?"

Now might be a good time for a little bad poetry. After all it does say THE VERY BAD POET up there on the marquee. Time to put my money where my mouth is. Although last time I did,  I ended up in a womens correctional facility with a delightful bunkmate named 'Carla' who flushed my shoes down the toilet while I was sleeping. She also got great joy out of kicking me in the shins. We eventually became BFF's after I gave her all of my clean underwear and became very good at her favorite game 'Where did Carla hide her teeth?'

I should send her a Christmas card.

Anywhoodles, here are a few bad poems from B IS FOR BAD POETRY to warm your cockles. If they get too warm, you should probably see a doctor.

Nietzsche And The Ice-Cream Truck
God is dead.
But this atomic
berry blast Popsicle
is heavenly.

A Brief History Of Feminism
Sally sells seashells
by the seashore
as if people didn't know
you could just
go to the beach
and find them yourself.

Unfortunate Cookie
You will soon meet someone
who will bring you much joy and love.

Eventually they will devour your soul
like it's a hot dog eating championship.

Motto
When one door closes
another door opens
onto a cliff.

How To Reprimand a Cynical Optimist
You can have your cake
and eat it too
but don't let me catch you
five minutes later
in the bathroom
with your finger
down your throat.

From B IS FOR BAD POETRY 2009 By Pamela August Russell
Publisher: Sterling
ISBN: 1-4027-6787-0
ISBN13: 9781402767876
$9.95 US
Hardcover with Jacket (not fur)

Yo-Ho-Ho And A Bottle of Irony!

A famous writer I know once told me a story about another, even more famous writer she had gone to visit. When she arrived, the more famous writer was sitting in a chair looking out the window towards the gray Canadian mountains and said, "Irony.  It's all we have left."
I couldn't agree more. Then again, it was Canada.

Some critics have even said that irony has been the death of American literature. I'm sure Faulkner and Steinbeck would agree, Sedaris and Heller would not. Clearly, it's not for everyone. Still, there are people walking around in the world who just don't understand it. Or as I like to call them, people without a sense of humor. They're out there hiding in the bushes.
Trust me.

I find this disbelief in irony hard to believe.  Which is ironic because I find most things in life hard to believe. How about life itself for instance. Can you believe we're all going to die at some random time and place completely unbeknownst to any of us? Yet here we are cleaning the toilet bowl, wrapping Christmas presents and throwing cocktail parties like we couldn't give a crap. And for the most part, we don't. Unless of course you're Woody Allen who writes entire films based on it. For the rest of us it's just the giant pink elephant in the room that we all step delicately around to get to the sausage tray and open bar. Ironic?
You bet, Susan.
So why all the fuss about irony? Well, it seems there are a few folks out there who think I should take my literary endeavors a little more seriously. Oh, I do. I'm very serious about using humor, sarcasm and irony in strange and wonderful new ways. I assume that most readers already know how bad things in life can get. I'll leave the seriousness of it all to the dramatists and Franz Kafka. In the meantime,  I'll be writing 'bad poetry' and short stories about silly things like how I helped Bob Dylan learn how to write songs. (the man couldn't rhyme to save his life) And if by some cosmic irony I get hit by a bus, the only thing I want to hear at my funeral is, "Look! She's moving!"

 "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work...I want to achieve it by not dying." -Woody Allen

Photo: Kathlyn Horan http://www.tinfishfilms.com/

Happy Holidays...Lard Ass!

Well it's officially official...

I'm fat.

No, not in that 'maybe I should have shared that 18 pound turkey' kind of way or that Hollywood actress-y 'I weigh 105 but my manager says I look better onscreen at 102' kind of way either. This was my doctor saying "You should lose a few pounds."
A few? That's like telling Bukowski he's better with just 'a couple' of drinks. Sure, things were starting to jiggle.
I'm a writer.
I sit.
I sit around.
A lot.
I sit around and stare at nothing. It scares the cats.
Apparently it scares the neighbors too. There were phone calls.
As I see it, there are a few problems with losing 'a few' pounds.
Problem #1: 'A few' turned out to be 15 pounds.
It didn't help that as I was leaving he said, "Good luck, lard-ass."
The nurse even grabbed the lollypop out of my hand
with a look that said we're not screwing around here lady!
Problem #2: I like white food.
Pasta, pizza, cheese, bread. Lots of bread. Lots of crispy, doughy, toasty bread!
Yes, Susan, carbs. Fatty, yummy, dirty carbs.
Problem #3: There is no exercise in the world that can keep me interested for more than 5 minutes. Except of course a police chase and unless I cross the State line into Nevada they tend to end pretty quickly. Being roughed up and handcuffed only burns about 40 calories anyway. So what's a gal to do?
I have a plan, Susan.
I've decided to go ahead and balloon up to 350.
Whoopie Pies, fried chicken and pancakes with syrup for breakfast, lunch and dinner!
That way it'll be obvious to EVERYONE that snacking is a form of exercise in and of itself. Also, it'll be impossible for me to keep writing. Much like jogging, one sentence and I'll be completely out of breath. In the meantime, gird your buffet table. I'm on my way over with an empty stomach and a 5 year old holiday fruitcake.