Tuesday, April 30, 2013

I Could Pee on This???

A Cartoon Tribute To Cats, And The Poets Who Loved Them



Tuesday marks the close of National Poetry Month, a 30-day celebration of all things versified and all people versifying. And in tangentially related news, for more than eight months, a book of cat-themed poetry — I Could Pee On This — has perched on the NPR best-seller lists. There it sits, insouciantly swishing its tail amid self-help books and memoirs, the poetry world's sole representative on the list.
Gazing at this collection of "poems by cats" week after week, I wondered: What is it about cats and poetry? Poets gaze out rain-streaked windows, write with fountain pens, drink tea, have cats: So goes the stereotype.
Is it true? As far as I know, no one has conducted a strictly scientific study of whether poets are more covered in cat hair than the rest of the population. But statistically significant or not, cats and poets certainly have a long history. NPR books asked Francesco Marciuliano, the author of I Could Pee On This as well as a comic strip writer and a cartoonist, to help walk us through some notable cat-poet duos ... starting with Christopher Smart and his cat, Jeoffry.

**

this is too funny-- I have to check it out.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Fun "Mad Libs" poem from Ben Lerner, up at he PoFo website:

Mad Lib Elegy

BY BEN LERNER
There are starving children left on your plate.
There are injuries without brains.
Migrant workers spend 23 hours a day
removing tiny seeds from mixtures
they cannot afford to smoke
and cannot afford not to smoke.
Entire nations are ignorant of the basic facts
of hair removal and therefore resent
our efforts to depilate unsightly problem areas.
Imprisonment increases life expectancy.
Finish your children. Adopt an injury.
           ‘I'm going to my car. When I get back,
           I'm shooting everybody.'
                                [line omitted in memory of_______]


70% of pound animals will be euthanized.
94% of pound animals would be euthanized
if given the choice. The mind may be trained
to relieve itself on paper. A pill
for your safety, a pill for her pleasure.
Neighbors are bothered by loud laughter
but not by loud weeping.
Massively multiplayer zombie-infection web-games
are all the rage among lifers.
The world is a rare case of selective asymmetry.
The capitol is redolent of burnt monk.
           ‘I'm going to my car. When I get back
           I'm shooting everybody.'
                                 [line omitted in memory of _______]


There are two kinds of people in the world:
those that condemn parking lots as monstrosities,
‘the ruines of a broken World,' and those
that respond to their majesty emotionally.
70% of the planet is covered in parking lots.
94% of a man's body is parking lot.
Particles of parking lot have been discovered
in the permanent shadows of the moon.
There is terror in sublimity.
If Americans experience sublimity
the terrorists have won.
          ‘I'm going to my car. When I get back
          I'm shooting everybody.'
                                [line omitted in memory of _______]

Ben Lerner, "Mad Lib Elegy" from Fascicle website. Copyright © 2010 by Ben Lerner.  Reprinted by permission of the author.

Source: Fascicle website (2010)
Discover this poem’s context and related poetry, articles, and media.
POETBen Lerner b. 1979
POET’S REGIONU.S., Mid-Atlantic

Sunday, April 07, 2013