Bruce Bennett: Of Making Books
“Of making books there is no end.”
That’s what I want to tell my friend.
But he’s too busy. He won’t hear.
Year after year. Year after year
He’s busy making books. My friend
Will never stop. That’s all he does,
And all he will do. Every year
Another book or two. I fear
He’ll just go on. That’s all he does.
It does no good to bid him cease,
Or ask him What’s the point? I fear
I’ll only watch his books increase
Since he will never, never cease.
Me? I no longer write. My friend
does nothing, nothing but increase
his flow of books. There is no end!
I cannot, cannot stand my friend!
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Julia Griffin: Ovillejo for Shakespeare
I’m furrowed now where I was pimply.
Simply
Time’s cruel plough; I should not slam
The thing I am:
Hope that I’ve something left to give
Shall make me live.
In fact, although derivative,
The following, which asks no skill
Suffices, both for me and Will:
Simply the thing I am shall make me live.
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Will Ingrams: Formality
Traditional poetic forms
Reward those who respect their norms,
But when selecting words that chime
Pursue the import, not the rhyme.
The Sonnet or this Kyrielle,
A Rondeau, Pantoum, Villanelle,
Will triumph if you take the time;
Pursue the import, not the rhyme.
Express yourself with strings of words
Melodic as the trills of birds,
Use cadences that fall and climb,
Pursue the import, not the rhyme.
When verse is free beware the cost
If theme or train of thought is lost;
To frame your verse is not a crime,
Pursue the import, not the rhyme.
Old forms persist because they neatly
Parcel up a thought completely,
Take it as a paradigm,
Pursue the import, not the rhyme.
When thoughts are bubbling in your mind
A structure keeps them intertwined,
Your poetry could be sublime;
Pursue the import, not the rhyme.
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Pat D’Amico: Poetic Sustenance
Something strikes me funny or I hear a certain word.
I see a situation that is patently absurd.
Sometimes I take no notice, but there are other times
When an engine in my head fires up and starts to look for rhymes.
I mean no disrespect and I never would be rude
But human nature serves me up the very best “poem food.”
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Ellen Dooling Reynard: Madam Spellcheck
I sputter, and curse
that annoying application
which has the audacity
to question my knowledge
of orthographic veracity.
Infused with poetic creativity
I sit at my computer,
where Madam Spellcheck's proclivity
to make the poem suit her,
changes spilleth to skillet.
For dozes she suggests
does – would she change noses
to knows, I wonder,
as my poem is torn asunder
and I sigh.
When were not always becomes
we're not always, I mourn the lost perfection,
when she decrees that my 8-year-old self waited
should be my 8-year-old self-waited,
I fall into dejection.
Madam Spellcheck's not on my list
of favorite apps, I find,
although I cannot shake my fist
at her fixing typos, – so maligned –
she cannot be dismissed.
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L. A. Mereoie: Polish Makes Perfect
Alas for my first clunky sonnet,
How easily others outshone it!
But ruthless revision
And heroic excision
Means the goose might now plausibly swan it.
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Mary Cresswell: Review Copy
So that’s the new collection read –
I recognise the metre –
it has our poet’s special touch
and fits within her corpus . . .
How splendid she’s alive and well
and writing up a storm.
Someone said that she was dead –
a rumour surely sweeter
than thinking she was out to lunch,
no longer fit for purpose.
This new collection’s really swell;
her reputation’s firm,
though now I’ve got it in my head
to warn you, unwary reader,
that she’s gone meta – just a hunch!
Where once she cruised the surface
we have an ego trip from hell
with philosophic charm
thoroughly and completely played
and no way laconic, either!
But lucky you, you mustn’t think
she ever might desert us:
she’s here to stay. So read your fill –
she’s keeping all her options warm.
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David J. Rothman: I Dropped Whitman’s Brain
The doctors removed his brain and sent it to
be measured and weighed at the American
Anthropometric Society, where it was destroyed
when a laboratory worker accidentally dropped it
on the floor.
– Justin Kaplan, Walt Whitman: A Life, Page 53
Hey Fred! Come quick! I’ve dropped that poet’s brain!
I tripped and it slid off onto the floor.
Let’s get the mop, before it leaves a stain!
What will the doctors say? “Can you explain
Why nothing’s left to measure or explore?
It looks as though you may have dropped this brain . . .”
Well . . . maybe they’ll just think he was insane.
Don’t just stand there, grab that cuspidor,
We’ll scoop it in before it leaves a stain.
Over there! it’s leaking down the drain!
We’ll never get it back into the drawer.
And I’m the one who dropped his stupid brain.
Oh, yuck!. It’s spattered on the windowpane.
Not really such a great brain any more.
Let’s get the mop, before it leaves a stain!
If only they’d invented cellophane,
We could contain these multitudes of gore –
But it’s no use. I’ve dropped the poet’s brain.
Let’s get the mop, before it leaves a stain!
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Daniel Galef: An Astronomical Quibble (Response to Coleridge)
The moving moon went up the sky From the sails the dew did drip—
And no where did abide. Till clomb above the eastern bar
Softly she was going up The hornèd Moon, with one bright star
And a star or two beside. Within the nether tip.
—“Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
“A star or two beside”
I can abide,
but “the hornèd moon with one bright star”
goes too far.
