Jennifer Schuessler at the New York Times has been boosting the “turn the Veep debate into a poetry slam” movement. Two poems selected from her Paper Cuts blog post:
Haiku’s not the form
For Senator Joe Biden
Because the last line may come out slightly longer than is absolutely necessary due to the subject’s ability to analogize all topics to a seminal moment in the history of this great nation of ours, America, the UNITED states of America
-Henry Alford
So jobs, they … you know,
Health care’s really …. it’s — Katie,
That bridge? I said no.
-David Orr
[Via Quick Study]
Smile to camera
Seemed fine at the beginning
Winking not so much
Wink,
Oh, Gosh,
Very bad question.
Wink, smile, ramble, drawl
People talk about your hair
Claim a victory
Opponent’s trauma.
Smiling obliviously.
She fucked up big time.
Palin Jeopardy.
A: Bridge to nowhere. Q: What
is the Bush doctrine?
Drill baby drill.
It’s gotta be all about
job creation, *wink*.
Maritime border.
Starin’ across the water –
Putin’s head rears up.
Moose in the headlights:
What does the Vice President
Do every day?
Funny how I was
Yeah, mocked. I guess that’s the word.
Also — you betcha.
neo con fantasy
and creationist doll
send red states sliding
springtime candidate
with memorised twadle
beats expectation
Northern Puck Mum
harvests repug waffle
forgets to engage
Oh we’re all so smart
Scribblin’ this form that demands
So much skill and yet
.
Somehow methinks you
Be not what ye thinkest quite
Fightin’ eager wars
.
Have to ask questions
Sorry but really do you
Not see a conflict?
.
Palin’s Yank Tory
Sure. But she’s female too yeah?
Her views exclude her?
.
From the feminist
Considerations due to
Your allied agents?
.
If women, left-wing
Threaten their sisters, right-wing
With rape is that great?
.
Hark ye I say this:
If that’s true, then declare ye
Bankrupt morally.
Troll prowling at dusk:
Nuts in empty calabash.
Straw man in the wind.
Sandra Bernhard’s a
“comedian” — I thought you
Were smarter than that.
Unattributed
source –> RWDB
“credibility”.
Tokenism? No.
May the best candidate win.
Of any background.
Question asked
Oh bugger, what do I do
Energy policy!
Where does this fecking
ridiculous notion come
from that you can’t be
a feminist if
you condemn any other
woman, at all, for
anything at all,
ever? As someone once said
about the steely-
eyed M. Thatcher, she
may be a woman but she
is not a Sister.
Lounged upon my grizzly
howling wolves on my wall
comfort me like Hemingway.
Annoying questions
To expose my ignorance
See my one finger
Hey! I’m one of you
A voice for the disenfranchised
Why won’t you listen?
All dem rogue countries
Can’t let crazies get the bomb
Let’s give our nukes a spin
Did I say those things?
No. Again make Minitrue
And avoid questions
.
There’s criticism
And there’s pack rape threats, you see?
The difference here?
.
If ’twas Hillary
So very appalled you’d be
But Sarah is fine
.
Your hypocrisy
Pointed out for all to see
Makes me a troll, yeah?
.
Alrighty then fine
Distort my words meanings change
But I know the truth
Loud condemnation:
The standard distraction of
Wingnutistan.
Trillions in debt? Or
losing two wars? Hey! Look here!
Sandra Bernhard! — boooooooo!
I’m much more appalled
By what Bush did, than by what
Sandra Bernhard said.
Supporting the First
Don’t make me a hypocrite.
Just sayin’, is all.
I’d better shut up
now. If I keep mispelling
Her name, she’ll rape me.
Palin’s paling
Biden’s biding
time slipping
away
Wingnut, a Clue:
One woman’s stupidity,
Feminism, Not same. Different.
Loudly Condemning
Palin: Not A Feminist.
Failing to Loudly
Condemn Bernhard*: Not
A Feminist. He wins! Why
are we not surprised?
*#17: I thought better of the footnote but then forgot to remove the asterisk.
Sort of like my whole life, really.
With your long brown hair
and eyes of brown
the only thing you ever brought to town was hollow, hollow
You acted funny
with earmark money
you’re out there playing your sixpack games so hollow,hollow
You always did what Rove said you oughta
something tells me you’re Goebbels’ daughter- shallow,shallow
aaaah,ah aaaah
bad sax solo
They had to find her
‘cos they can’t resist her
archetypal Republican mommy/sister
sorrow,sorrow
With a view to Russia from ya icy roof;
someone tell me it’s all a spoof
sorrow,sorrow
oh-oh-oh-oh,eeeahhhh
with your loooong brooown haiyah
I couldn’t sleep last nite
..with ya loooowng brownnnn haiyaahhh…..
if they had to find her, haiku-no san, how come they ain’t found her before-wah, ain’t now the right time, oh yeah, but before-wah was suits ‘n ties, how come she’s comin’ in from the icy cold now, eh? snowy wastes, all moose in her hair-yah, hot guns toted, hog-tied and gee whizz breathless, ken i call yew joe?
ODE TO AN ICY PUCK
If a hockey mom
is mom to the whole
team, makes debbie
doing dallas look
mighty old-hat
Cold icy puck
hard won puck
SPLAT
“I don’t know what feminism is,
but I notice I get called
a feminist, every time I
say something which distinguishes
me from a door-mat”,
thought the moose, just
before the fatal shot
arrived
I’m much more appalled
By what Bush did, than by what
Sandra Bernhard said.
.
So am I. I think Palin’s mob are dangerous. But if we all paid as much attention to the behaviour of ‘our side’ as we do to the other: they wouldna get away with it.
.
Bush wouldn’t've got away with it: Understand? Marx said it best: Parliamentary idiocy.
But if we all paid as much attention to the behaviour of ‘our side’ as we do to the other: they wouldna get away with it.
onya Adrien! Critique of one’s “own side” is difficult, can be painful, but is potentially a corrective to lazy or dodgy proclamation. When that Socrates bloke talked about the “unexamined life” I reckon it was one’s OWN life he meant, not the lives of others.
Could be wrong, but.
Adrien, your basic mistake is to assume that feminists/the left didn’t call Sandra Bernhart on her idiocy. You need to read some actual feminist blogs, from the US, which is where it happened.
I did not assume
Such, not at all, I called those
Here to say something
.
But nothing was said
I’m sure you’re right tho’ it’s spite
All mine, no-one else.
And Helen mistakes
I make are many, not one
I’m riddled with ‘em
.
But my sins are mine
And at least, I don’t think God
Talks to me in dreams
.
Sandra’s bullshit sucks
But that anyhow doesn’t mean
Sarah’s any better
.
Nay she’s worse, much much
Much much much much much much much
Much much much much much….
great rhyming, adrien
Thanks Ambig. I’m inspired by the Great Poet of WWI, Baldrick and his poem: Boom boom boom etc…
Sarah Palin, a sharp nail. Anal parish plan sharia.
Poetry tennis
High lobs back and forth until
Somebody breaks form…
How about some beatnik blank verse? You know the kind of thing. The poetry you write when you can’t actually write it.
.
.
.
.
Well might you say God blessa ‘Merica
‘Cause nuttin i’gonna save a ‘Publican party
Rats i’th’ cage stew’n
Their own salty hormones: dig it-
.
Youra’peens say ‘Stratya’s gotno kulcha mate? Noe’ist’ry
But at least we redit, sometime mate.
The Sephos mate they don’t know howda read mate.
McDonald’s runs their schools mate.
The exam’s th’ answer’s always Pepsi
Fries with that.
Mate!
.
‘Merica, ‘merica
Christ sheds something
On thee; say
.
Can’t you see?
By early dawn light or any other
How this story goes and’s gone before…
Under the same sun’t beat down a desert
‘For the Stars ‘n Stripes ever flapped
I’th’ breeze at the scene of a massacre.
.
Them towelheads’s tough; they
Got power you never knew
Cause they were once a
Time just like you
.
On this Earth then
They were Culture’s noble face
But something turned and
Then religion ran the place
Speaking as the bloke who got haikus happening at LP, u r doing it wrong!
A classic haiku is not just a matter of syllable count - which conceptually doesn’t really translate from Japanese into English anyway. It also needs to elliptically use one of the four seasons as the hook, punchline or spine. An emotional Polaroid connected to nature’s cycles. Just slicing and dicing up an obvious point into the right combination of syllables is not a haiku.
Talking white as snow
From cue cards like old foot prints
They both grin like ice
Word, versemaster kittykat. Frankly the best English-language counterpart to the haiku is the two-line nasty epigram, done best with ill-will by bad people.
Take Hilaire Belloc’s Christmas wish: