Naeional Poetry Month: Special Anti-Elitist Edition

18 thoughts on “Naeional Poetry Month: Special Anti-Elitist Edition”

1. When the going gets tough
   And the stomach acids flow
   The cold wind of conformity
   Is nipping at your nose
   When some trendy new atrocity
   Has brought you to your knees
   Come with us we’ll sail the
   Seas of Cheese
   from Primus’s “Sailing the Seas of Cheese”

2. In Praise of Elitists
   I come not to bury the elite, but to praise them. No, not the “elite” who are anything but, over-promoted scions of wealthy families dull of wit and duller of mind, there by grace of Poppy be. No, I come to praise the true elite, the thinkers, the doers, the creators of science and writers of texts, those who spent years or decades studying their field and years more working in it, those of sharp wit and clear minds. For who should we wish this nation to be led by — a true elite of the best and the brightest, or by dullards and know-nothings, prayersome scions of ignorance and hate? And who, amongst us, would do the better job — the true elite, or the dullards and bubbas who worship upon the altar of their Lord and Savior, George W. Bush, and His holy appointed administration of fellow dullards?
   I come today not to bury elitism, but to praise it. For it has become clear that government of the ignorant, by the ignorant, for the benefit of a few dullards who have a talent for criminal graft and the accumulation of silly baubles, is hardly conducive to health, prosperity, or the general welfare. Elitism: It’s not only not a dirty word, but may be a good idea.
   – Badtux the Elitist Penguin

3. 
Daddy do it, oh, just do it
Daddy do it, please let me see
Daddy do it, please just do it daddy
Do it, do it, do it, drivin' me crazy

   – Steven Tyler “Cheesecake”

4. No collection of bad poetry is complete without at least one poem by the world’s official Worst Poet, William Topaz McGonagall. (If you doubt his status, google on “worst poet”.)
   I was unsure which gems of his work to share with you, but finally decided that a poem with an American theme was most appropriate:
   Jottings of New York, by William McGonagall
   OH mighty City of New York! you are wonderful to behold,
   Your buildings are magnificent, the truth be it told,
   They were the only things that seemed to arrest my eye,
   Because many of them are thirteen storeys high.
   And as for Central Park, it is lovely to be seen
   Especially in the summer season when its shrubberies and trees are green;
   And the Burns’ statue is there to be seen,
   Surrounded by trees, on the beautiful sward so green;
   Also, Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott,
   Which by Englishmen and Scotsmen will ne’er be forgot.
   There the people on the Sabbath-day in thousands resort,
   All loud in conversation and searching for sport,
   Some of them viewing the menagerie of wild beasts there,
   And also beautiful black swans, I do declare.
   And there’s beautiful boats to be seen there,
   And the joyous shouts of the children do rend the air,
   While the boats sail along with them o’er Lohengrin Lake,
   And the fare is five cents for children and adults ten is all they take.
   And there’s also summer-house shades and merry-go-rounds,
   And with the merry laughter of the children the Park resounds
   During the livelong Sabbath-day,
   Enjoying the merry-go-round play.
   Then there’s the elevated railroads, about five storeys high,
   Which the inhabitants can see and hear night and day passing by,
   Oh! such a mass of people daily do throng,
   No less than five hundred thousand daily pass along,
   And all along the City you can get for five cents,
   And, believe me, among the passengers there are few discontent.
   And the top of the houses are all flat,
   And in the warm weather the people gather to chat,
   Besides on the house tops they dry their clothes,
   And also many people all night on the house-tops repose.
   And numerous ships and steamboats are there to be seen,
   Sailing along the East River Water so green;
   ‘Tis certainly a most beautiful sight
   To see them sailing o’er the smooth water day and night.
   And Brooklyn Bridge is a very great height,
   And fills the stranger’s heart with wonder at first sight,
   But with all its loftiness, I venture to say,
   For beauty it cannot surpass the new Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay.
   And there’s also ten thousand rumsellers there,
   Oh! wonderful to think, I do declare
   To accomodate the people of that city therein,
   And to encourage them to commit all sorts of sin.
   And on the Sabbath-day, ye will see many a man
   Going for beer with a tin can,
   And seems proud to be seen carrying home the beer
   To treat his neighbours and family dear.
   Then at night numbers of the people dance and sing,
   Making the walls of their houses to ring
   With their songs and dancing on Sabbath night,
   Which I witnessed with disgust, and fled from the sight.
   And with regard to New York and the sights I did see,
   One street in Dundee is worth more to me,
   And, believe me, the morning I sailed from New York
   For Bonnie Dundee, my heart it felt as light as a cork.

5. fail, prithee, dominatrix rex
   to walk upright, gaberdeen slacks
   knees worn dirty, besmirched. wrecked
   lipstick intruder welcome. regress.

6. want some really bad poetry?
   check this out, lol

7. Hey the bawds among you may want to go take a look at Immortalia: An Anthology of American Ballads, Sailors’ Songs, Cowboy Songs, College Songs, Parodies, Limericks, and other humorous verses and doggerel — it is online at http://www.immortalia.com/html/books-OCRed/1927-immortalia/ — I particularly like the take on Poe’s “The Raven” which is on page 146.

8. I don’t know.
   I keep thinking that these McIntyre verses are really subtly ironic comments on the monarchy.
   For instance,
   “Three hundred curd they would need squeeze
   For to make this mammoth cheese.
   So British lands could confederate
   Three hundred provinces in one state,
   When all in harmony agrees
   To be pressed in one like this cheese,
   Then one skillful hand could acquire
   Power to move British empire”
   seems to be an argument against at-large elections under the British Parliamentary system (favoring regional “in-riding” elections as is now the case). Viewed in this light, such following verses as
   “But various curds must be combined
   And each factory their curd must grind”
   “But it will need a powerful press
   This cheese queen to caress,
   And a large extent of charms
   Hoop will encircle in its arms”
   “To seek fresh conquests queen of cheese
   She may sail across the seas,
   Where she would meet reception grand
   From the warm hearts in old England”
   seem to be sly – and not entirely unapproving – comments on labor unionism, the military strength of the United Kingdom, and empirialism, respectively.
   Allow me to say also, in passing, that
   “view the people all agog, so
   Excited o’er it in Chicago”
   is perhaps the finest single rhyming couplet ever penned.
   At any rate, once having adopted the “political” view of McIntyre’s deathless prose, similar readings of his other works suggest themselves with an almost irresistible immediacy. Consider, for instance . . .
   “We have seen the Queen of cheese,
   Laying quietly at your ease,
   Gently fanned by evening breeze —
   Thy fair form no flies dare seize.”
   If you merely remove the words “of cheese” from the above stanza, it reveals itself as an almost treasonously sarcastic remark upon the “parasitic monarchy” (one presumes McIntyre’s politics changed radically between “Prophecy on a Ten Ton Cheese” and “Ode on the Mammoth Cheese”).
   “All gaily dressed soon you’ll go
   To the great Provincial Show,
   To be admired by many a beau
   In the city of Toronto.”
   and
   “May you not receive a scar as
   We have heard that Mr. Harris
   Intends to send you off as far as
   The great World’s show at Paris.”
   grant similar readings, in this case remarking upon the monarch’s penchant for swanning around the capitals of Europe and the Empire, while
   “Of the youth — beware of these —
   For some of them might rudely squeeze
   And bite your cheek; then songs or glees
   We could not sing o’ Queen of Cheese”
   is a quite daringly ribald jest at old Queen Victoria – known not to be averse to having her cheeks squeezed or (possibly) bitten. (One remembers, here, to elide the words “of Cheese” in interpreting this verse, naturally.)
   And, of course, the meaning of McIntyre’s “Nova Scotia” cannot be clearer:
   “If you are sulky, Nova Scotia,
   We’ll gladly let you float away
   From out our Confederation;
   You sicken us with sily agitation.”
   The “Dairy Ode”, I admit, is not so revealing of hidden political meanings, but I prefer to regard it as a patriotic pastoral extolling the virtues of the various Canadian provinces (and thereby foretelling, in its way, the similar sentiments of the Beach Boys’ vernal ode, “California Girls”).
   Truly, this was a master of the subdued glance and the poignard wit. An overlooked genius of the cud and the curd.

9. It’s easy to grin,
   when your ship comes in,
   and you’ve got the stock market beat.
   But the man that’s worthwile,
   is the man that can smile,
   when his pants are too tight in the seat.

10. Naeional Poetry Month?

11. When nature’s callin’,
    don’t be stallin’,
    use your common sense!
    Before you let it flow,
    find a place to go,
    just don’t whiz on the electric fence!

12. Jim Rome’s haiku ode to Rae Carruth:
    I shot my wife dead.
    Didn’t want to be a dad.
    I live in a cage.

13. A Jim Rome name-check on Obsidian Wings? Rack him!

14. I especially liked the way that he makes us pronounce “Scotia” as “Skoat-ee-ay”, in order to rhyme with “float away”.
    Real quality will always reveal itself in points like this.

15. Naeional Poetry Month?
    Elitist!

16. So did you misspell national to make the anti-elitists feel more comfortable?

17. Nope; a pure mistake.Tried to correct it; Typepad was uncooperative; then I decided that a spelling mistake in this particular title had something to be said for it, so I left it alone.

18. Per W. Zaranka, in The Brand-X Anthology of Poetry:
    Does Modernist Poetry lack the milk of humankindness? Is art Modern insofar as it does not resemble the human, as Ortega y Gasket suggests? Perhaps Donald Davies Daiches is right when he criticizes Eliot’s poetry for lacking “scope and [human] sympathy.” On the other hand, the work of William Bluster Yeast seems overflowing with milk. In such poems as “The Man Who Dreamed of Dairyland” and “The Second Camembert,” Yeast writes: “Churning and churning in the widening Gruyere,/Surely the Second Camembert is at hand.” Here Yeast is echoing the sentiment expressed by Hardy’s Tess in “Neuter Tones,” where occurs the famous smellie: “And the sun was white as though cheddar of God.” Both poets, of course, owe a debt to the Milton of Samsoe Agonistes, and to Wordsworth, whose “The Ruined Cottage Cheese,” like much of the poetry of Frost, takes place in the luggage really used by men. Milton and Wordsworth set the standards for gerontions of Cheese (and later, Snack) Poets, including John Hausman, author of “Loveliest of Cheese, the Cheshire Now” and “With Rue My Heart is Leyden,” Wallace Stevens, author of “Anecdote of the Jarlsberg” and “The Emperor of Cream Cheese,” and Robert Graves, author of “The White Gouda” (cf. Robinson’s “Minerva Cheesy”) and “Muriel Rukase.” But it is to the mature Yeast, whose career spans the end of one fin de siecle, the nineteenth, and the beginning of another, the twentieth, we must go for the greatest Cheese poems in the English language (the Greek poet Constantine Havarti is recognized as the world’s most important). Most of these poems were composed during the Boston Celtic Twilight which Yeast, indisputably the greatest English poet in Ireland, immobilized forever. The most frequently anthologozied of these, and therefore the best, is the poem Yeast dedicated to the aging naturalist Maud Gorgonnezola, with whom he was in love most of his life. It is, of course, “Liederkranz and the Swan” composed under Ben Bulben, “where are the Lieders start,/In the foul wine-and-cheese shop of the heart.” Surely, here is poetry possessed of all the milk of humankindness a reader could wish.

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