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Someone at thinkofitlike anonymously sent me a link , for an interesting poem, an abstract of which I present to you:

THINK OF IT LIKE LOSING YOUR SOULMATE
THINK OF IT LIKE A POEM FOR MY EYES ONLY
THINK OF IT LIKE POINTLESS SUICIDES
THINK OF IT LIKE A GRANDE DECAF LATTE TO GO
THINK OF IT LIKE YOUR FIRST
THINK OF IT LIKE NEUROSIS AND CATHARSIS
THINK OF IT LIKE A MOMENT OF WEAKNESS
THINK OF IT LIKE OTHELLO
THINK OF IT LIKE MY LITTLE PONY
THINK OF IT LIKE KING CNUT
THINK OF IT LIKE NON-STANDARD PAPER SIZES
THINK OF IT LIKE UNTIMELY ENDS
THINK OF IT LIKE EVERYTHING COUNTS
THINK OF IT LIKE JUNCTION 22 OF THE M25

The author/s claims that "It is about how much you can say without saying anything at all, and at the same time there is slow self-disclosure happening here, even minus identifiable voice." I think there's an awful lot going on here, despite, or perhaps because of the fact, that the work emerged out of "a tongue-in-cheek dig at all the meaningless art-speak that clouds and distorts the nature of the work, to the point where the jargon is all there is." and that "at base there is no content here." Firstly, the poem, to abuse the language of physics, has emergent properties. These, empty phrases, find coherence, because they in some way reflect the authors preferences, and prejudices, and thus when cascading they produce a fine intellectual and emotional resonance. Over a mist of sadness, and the author's nostalgia and longing for intimate memories, the work has an edgy sardonic punch to it, which perhaps hints at a curious conflict in the authors personality. The poem also produces an interesting abstract counterpoint, as the repetitive 'Think of it Like' becomes subvocalised, while the second half of each line, forces itself into sound. I like it, and have found myself, tripping over 'Think of it likes' on the net ever since I first read it.

Have a look at the following Lyrics from Tom Waits:

Poor Little Lamb

Poor little lamb now his fleece is all cold
Wakes up in the morning alone
Poor little lamb knows what’s coming
Life is an empty cup

Poor little lamb watch your shoulder
Coyote'’s waiting out there
Nobody will get any older
If we don’t find a way out of here

So let’s go on a bummer this summer
Where we won'’t have to be afraid
The world will be on a hummer, boys
And we'’ll laugh and we'’ll drink lemonade

Now have a look at the following passage from William Kennedy's, 1983, Pulizter prize winning Ironweed.

On the wall of the abutment above the five, as one of them had pointed out, a former resident of the space has inscribed a poem:

Poor little lamb,
He wakes up in the morning,
His fleece all cold.
He knows what's coming.
Say, little lamb,
We'll go on the bummer this summer.
We'll sit in the shade
And drink lemonade,
The world'll be on the hummer.

So what's going on here? Well, the answer is quite simple. The similarity stems from the fact, that Tom Waits composed a song, based on the poem, for the soundtrack of the Hollywood film Ironweed. In doing so, we can see that in the transition from novel to film, the original poetry is rendered opaque by its transformation into music. We could read this as suppression, or displacement of the poem, by an industry unwilling to trust the sensibility of it's audience, but that may be hasty. Kennedy himself wrote the screenplay, and so may himself have transformed the poem, for reasons of narrative cohesion, economy of space or whatever. What's more interesting then, is the general idea, that poetry in novels is often not lost, but saved via transformation, when films are realised. As film is a medium, which more often than not, struggles with words, the choice to save the poem in this way, is therefore pragmatic and inspired.

Here's a collection of heartbreaking and uplifting verse from parents, friends and families of infants who have died of Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). Quite a few people seem to have found some comfort there. It's raw and genuine, and inhabits that everyday space that academic reviews find impossible to explore. It's a pity because authenticity is always stronger than contrivance.


The Long Forever
Genesse Gentry

You left us so quickly,
there were no good-byes.
How long this forever,
your death and our lives.

The sadness, the anger,
the loneliness of three,
preferring four always,
how small, this new we.

Sometimes you trawl a book of poetry, and find nothing of interest. Sometimes you find resonance in only a few words. At other times you find a few nice lines, or
verses, and now and then even a poem. Probably only a few times in a lifetime will an entire collection ensnare you. Dubliner, Caitríona O’Reilly’s The Sea Cabinet comes as a Poetry Book Society recommendation, so you might, if you have any faith at all in your fellow poetry readers, hope to find at least some of the above enumeration within.

Of delectable words, there is no doubt. For the poet has been thinking about this in Calculus herself.

I collect fine words the way others collect birds’ eggs:
For kestrels’ I have roseapple; for wrens’ pearlworth.

Of lines, the greatest to my mind, comes from the Deaf Man’s House, in part III, The Sleep of Reason:

I have heard nothing for many years
but the animal-breath of madness
in my ear.

In But do the Girdle do the Gods Inherit, we can also excise the following thoughtful and haunting construction:

Imagine how it is with us: our stone implements,
our combs and early mirrors, ceding
no reflection. Even to ourselves unknown.

Of the collection itself, I'll admit that not all of it has hooked me, one or two of the poems seemed rushed and too impatient to be born, although with their scattered wanderings and naturalism I can see why they might appeal to others. But certainly there is enought here, to justify picking up a copy. In particular, of a poem, I’d recommend The Sea Cabinet. I really love it. In it O’Reilly, follows a lead from Mellville’s Moby Dick “There is a Leviathanic museum, they tell me, in Hull, England”, to the Town Docks Museum in Hull, whereupon she encounters The Sea Cabinet, a historically compromised display of the seafaring past. In doing so, O’Reilly does with wonderful skill, what the actual Hull Sea Cabinet itself seemingly fails to do: she retrieves into our space, the world of frozen artic seas, the people above them, and the mammals below them. When she is not bringing this world to you, she is transporting you to that world. A world which is at once tragic and beautiful. If you are a fan of Shackleton, Crean, and Whale tales in general, you’ll love this quintet: The Ship, The Mermaid. The Esquimaux, The Unicorn, The Whale. It's that good, I'm convinced I'll still be reading them many many years from now.

Disappointingly, O'Reilly and Bloodaxe have picked Many Ferries byJack B Yeats as a cover painting. There are few who doubt the painter's
genius, but unfortunately in Ireland right now, Yeats is fast becoming a worn out hero. Because he is wheeled out at every opportunity,
for every occasion great or small, at this point his paintings elicit
little more than a sigh and sense of cliché.

Stephen Johnson’s book Everything bad is Good for you, caused quite a stir when released last year. In it he made the argument that popular culture is more sophisticated and challenging than ever before, that complex games, films and TV-dramas, are not just a more sophisticated way of delivering stupidity, but to quote the publisher’s Blurb “it’s actually making us more intelligent.” I’ll leave the merits of that claim for others to discuss elsewhere. But speaking of the poverty of content in most games, Johnson notes “There’s no psychological depth here, no moral quandaries, no poetry [my italics]…..” Johnson’s attempt to exclude poetry from the world of gaming, is based on an ill defined formulation, and a lack of awareness, of poetry. In fact, games such as Tetris and Myst, do in fact have a large poetic quality in them, and various forms of impromptu poetry can easily be found among the online communities inhabiting multiplayer online games. Johnson is not arguing against books or indeed poetry in his thesis. I mention this only because I think some poets are just as likely to accept the fallacy that the universe of gaming is one without poetry. This is not the case, as you can see proof of this elsewhere on these pages.

I recently picked up a copy of cult author Edward Gorey's Amphigorey, a collection of illustrated comic verse, originally from fifteen books, first published between 1953 and 1965. It's full of dark dystopian gothic images, with versatile edgy narratives, outlined in verse. In many ways it can be seen as a forerunner to Tim Burton's well known work of the same ilk: The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy. The image from the left is not from the book, but gives a small taste of the style of drawing, and just a hint of the wit which pervades the text. Love it. ISBN: 0-14-012903-0.

Fans of that most mind bending of computer games, Myst, have put together a collection of writing and poetry charting their experiences. Could lead to some cryptic rhymes eh?

Poetry slam Inc, are retailing audio CDs, t-shirts, bags, hoodies, and poets notecards. Quality is variable, but there are one or two cool items available.

As an admirer of the thinking of Simone de Beauvoir, I've always been a little disappointed that she never wrote poetry. One possible reason, is that she felt that much of the content of poetry, held little meaning for her; because it described an unreal or a mythological woman.

This idea can be found in her writing in The Second Sex, where she observes that in the poetic universe of Breton, woman "tears man from the sleep of immanence; mouth, key, door, bridge, she is Beatrice leading Dante into the beyond." and that: "This unique woman, at once carnal and artificial, natural and human, casts the same spell as the equivocal objects dear to the surrealists: she is like the spoon-shoe, the table-wolf, the marble-sugar that the poet finds at the flea market or invents in a dream; she shares in the secret of familiar objects suddenly revealed in their true nature, and in the secret of plants and stones. She is all things." All, de Beauvoir notes, except herself.

That is not to say, that she rejected poetry out of hand. In fact, the solution to the conundrum, she points out, exists in a letter belonging to Rimbaud. She declares that woman will be a full human being, when "the infinite bondage of woman is broken, when she will live in and for herself, man -hitherto detestable -having let her go free.

Here's a snap of a Hummel figurine known as The Poet. This kitsch little dust catcher isn't exactly setting the collecting world on fire, but you'll probably get fifty quid for it, if you nick it from your Granny.

I've been the reading the notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci on and off for a while now. Among an array of books in his possession around 1498, were Sonnets by Burchiello,the Quadriregio (a religious scientific poem by the Dominican, Federigo Frezzi, Petrarch and the Acerba of Cecco d'Ascoli (an encyclopedia in verse).

Leonardo rated poetry highly, but not it seems as high as painting:

"Suppose the poet is set against the painter to represent beauty, terror or a base, ugly monstrous thing, whatever the forms he may in his way produce, the painter will satisfy the more."

"Though the poet is as free as the painter in the invention of his fictions his creations do not give so great a satisfaction to men as painting do; for though poetry attempts to describe forms, actions, and places in words, the painter employs the actual similitude of the forms, in order to reproduce them"

Humorously, in the particular notes from which these quotes are extracted (A comparison of the arts) Leonardo labours the point so much, that he leaves the lasting sense that he has just been mugged in a pub debate over which of the two art forms are superior.

P.J. O'Rourke has consistently proved himself wittier than anyone else alive. In
his most recent book, Peace Kills, the third in the unofficial trilogy following Holidays in Hell and Give War a Chance, he once again dabbles on the edges of warzones, perhaps complacent in the knowledge that even should he die, he will, in all likelihood, continue to remain wittier than anyone else alive.

Peace Kills is unusually laden with poetic reference. The book opens with the

Philip Larkin's Homage to a government. Larkin's dry British wit, is darker than O'Rourke, but it strikes you as a suitable companion to everyone's favourite republican party reptile. Self selected of course. In an essay on September 11th, O' Rourke recounts how on the evening of 9/11, he found himself thinking of Auden's September 1, 1939. The following lines came to his mind:

Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth

By Wednesday the poem however begins to bother him. P.J. appears somewhat alarmed and bashful by this interest in Auden and is worrying about the following 'crap':

Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective man

Ironic points of Light
Flash out whenever the Just
Exchange their messages.

Admitting that although Auden repudiated the poem because of the lines "We must
love one another or die", P.J. scolds 'Neither agape nor eros is an appropriate
response to Osama Bin Laden'. To this he adds lamely, "Auden was the Englishman
who, when World War II loomed, acted as Hitler would have had Englishmen act
-he ran to America and stayed there". Then later on, in an essay on Egypt, O'Rourke cites an article from the New York Times Book Review, which observes that Bin Laden has been reciting poetry on one of his video tapes - a poem O'Rourke notes which has been plagiarism from Jordanian poet Yusuf Abu Hilalah. The tone of the Jordanian poet is characterised by O'Rourke as "college-girl-with-her-head-in-the-oven" in style and O'Rourke comically mocks the idea that Bin Laden's poetic 'sensibility' will burnish his reputation, by imagining George Bush reciting Plath's Lady Lazarus.

Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air

In the same essay O' Rourke has fun rewriting Shelly's Ozymandias:

And on the pedestal these words appear
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Might, and despair"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck other than ticket
booths, soda-pop stands,
souvenir stalls, dozing guards, and
200 men in galabias asking,
"whereyoufromyoubuypostcardokay?"

So what are we to make of O'Rourkes use of poetry? Firstly, it represents him playing to his audience. Those who enjoy political satire, often come from or have a leaning towards the arts. As such poetry is good material. At the same time, O'Rourke stays firmly with the classics. Comedy needs familiarity as a touchstone to play off. Secondly O'Rourke uses poetry to demonstrate his satirical skills. Poetry, is traditionally seen as a difficult dangerous or even suicidal thing for comics to quote. Unless actual comic verse, the very citation of it can kill a wit due to the general public's current reflexive aversion to poetry. O'Rourke shows that he can deftly handle poetry, both seriously and whimsically to demonstrate his skill in addition to his rhetorical point. Thirdly, we see beneath the skin of the republican party reptile, because all his poets have a touch of somberness to them. As such, the traditional stereotype of comics having a streak of despair in them, may in the case of P.J. be true. Lastly it is interesting to see how an ingenious comic mind - offstage on September 11th - seemingly attempts to find meaning, by turning to poetry. Though not unique, the idea of turning to poetry at such a time, feels likes a very republican mindset, a very 'nobel' endeavor. As if to say "Let us turn to High culture in our hour of darkness". All very well, but then, in an equally republican manner, there follows the urge to deny sentiment, to deny feelings of fear and anger, and to lash out at solutions (The strength of Collective man...), which threaten their wealth and power.

Long may this court jester continue to reveal the republican and comic mind without boring us.