Category / Poetry

by Edward Champion

No Second Scoop of Ice Cream for You!

It looks like things are gearing up in Alameda come November for the Alameda Book Fair. A few authors have been signed up, 826 Valencia is hosting “a workshop for youth (ages 14-19) who love to write, or want to,” and there’s even an “open mic poetry reading.” Unfortunately, the reading has set some ground rules for those hoping to push the envelope:

(one poem only, please, and keep it PG-13!)

I suppose perfervid (or perhaps we should say “perverted”) poets will have to unload their family-friendly 400-stanza cantos in order to fall within this threshold.

by DrMabuse

Speedy Gonzales Roundup

by DrMabuse

Personally, We Hear Little Voices Encouraging Us to Become an Insurance Adjuster

It was missed yesterday, but Today in Literatue celebrated the work of William McGonagall, who was, without a doubt, the Bulwer-Lytton of poetry. Here’s McGonagall on the collapse of the Tay Railway Bridge:

…Oh! ill-fated Bridge of the Silv’ry Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

If you’ve got a hankering for more, there’s McGonagall Online, which includes McGonagall recounting the first man who threw peas at him, as well as his complete autobiography, where he describes his inspiration: “I wondered what could be the matter with me, and I began to walk backwards and forwards in a great fit of excitement, saying to myself– ‘I know nothing about poetry.’ But still the voice kept ringing in my ears – ‘Write, write,’ until at last, being overcome with a desire to write poetry, I found paper, pen, and ink, and in a state of frenzy, sat me down to think what would be my first subject for a, poem.”

by DrMabuse

Out-Blog Blogging?

Milan Kundera’s in demand in Shanghai, enough to make him the best-selling foreign author in the city. Hybrid publishers are reported to be preparing Mao’s Little Red Book of Laughter and Forgetting.

Kate Christensen, whom Ron was kind enough to alert me to, is interviewed by the Journal News. From what I’ve been able to tell, the new book involves a man diagnosed with McDonald’s disease, but who is still obsessed with eating Happy Meals. If he doesn’t stop eating fatty foods, he’ll die a horrible, miserable and stunningly descriptive death at the age of 40. Nevertheless, the allure of the de Montaigne Happy Meal action figures is enough to keep the man eating. Christensen calls her new novel part of “Loser Lit,” which is not to be confused “Laser Lit,” a recent flurry of novels that have featured protagonists taking charge of their destinies shortly after undergoing corrective eye surgery.

Woody Allen and Joyce Carol Oates are among those named by the Tacoma Tribune as talents who are too prolific.

Viggo Mortensen recently showed up in town to read his poetry. Here’s a sample:

I walk the line that Nimoy wrought
I am not Spock or Aragorn
The fangirls swoon upon my locks
The fanboys EBay off my socks
The fans behold my brawny bod
With glasses on, I hide and trod

Who shot J.R.R.? I did, of course
As I was strutting on a horse
You think he died in ’71?
Well, the geezer croaked when I was done
A bullet there between his eyes
Killed at eleventy-zero, a big surprise

They kept the news from kith and gents
The fans had Tyler to cream their pants
But Peter knew, and so did I
And Tolkien’s death did make us cry
An accident, like Brendan Lee!
And so I hid up in a tree

Political correctness has kept George Washington’s name from being properly honored. And here I was thinking that it was just because today’s United States pays little heed to its foundations.

No sign yet of the Wolf-Bloom article yet at the New York website. Keep watching the skies. The Boston Globe, however, has a precis for those who can’t wait.

[UPDATE: Whoop, there it is.]

Yahoo wants to out-Google Google. Google has responded, indicating that they plan to “out-out-Yahoo Yahoo’s out-Googling Googling outside after out-Yahooing out-Google outsourcing.” Venn diagram enthusiasts are still trying to figure out just what the hell these two giants were talking about.

And Frederick Morgan, long-time editor for The Hudson Review, has passed on. He was 81.