Do I make you uncomfortable? Do I, baby? Yeah!

[Leanne]

A recent discussion with a (non-poet) acquaintance brought up two issues:

1. He prefers poems that rhyme -- fair enough, that's the tradition he's used to

and 

2. He would rather I just wrote the funny poems, because that's what I'm best at.

"I don't like all that other stuff.  It's dark and twisted and I don't want to read something that makes me uncomfortable.  I come to your page because you're always good for a laugh."

Discuss.

[milo]

I think light verse sounds better when it rhymes as well.

All other conclusions draw naturally from that one.

[Achebe]

1. It is hard to write rhymed verse, because all the good rhymes are gone. It is hard to rhyme and not appear jingly-jangly. Even Larkin's 'Trees' (one of my favourite poems) would have read better in free verse. Only Dylan Thomas, and a few like him, can write about 'spindrift pages' and the 'grief of the ages' and look good. Your non-poet likes rhyme because he/she hasn't reach enough, I suppose.
Also, anyone can write rhymed verse terribly, which is what most people do (self included).

2. Your serious pomes are better. "Breakout" on your page, is my fave.
Anyone can write funny pomes. Humour is the lowest form of entertainment.

I'm in the mood for making profound-sounding, baseless statements this morning.

---

I think light verse sounds better when it rhymes as well.

All other conclusions draw naturally from that one.

that's what I meant - humour isn't art, only tragedy is art. hence humour goes well with rhyme, like neo-nazis falling in love with each other.

[Leanne]

I genuinely love rhymed poetry. It's always been my belief that in a good rhyming poem, one should not even notice the rhymes. I don't see that there's a real division between rhyme/non-rhyme, simply because to me, rhyme is just another tool to be used (properly). Sadly, there are a lot of tools using it

As for "anyone can write funny poems", I'm going to have to go with no on that one too. I'm not trying to be contrary, but I do recognise a significant skill involved in comic poetry, just as in comedy movies or books. I don't really separate things into categories though. It's very possible to have a hilarious poem/book/movie that also has a decent level of profundity.

Light comic verse does indeed work better when it rhymes. I love nothing more than a limerick, or a vile sonnet about bestiality (wait, where did that come from?). They're my writer's block poems (because there's no such thing as writer's block, that's just an excuse to be mopey and shite). Serious stuff requires serious editing, attention to detail, exactly the right word in exactly the right place, no cliches, no heavy-handed metaphor -- and I guess that's the problem. Some people just like to be beaten over the head with the bleeding obvious. I won't mention the nationality of this particular gentleman, lest it reinforce a stereotype that certain nations just don't understand or appreciate subtlety...

[Leanne]

PS. Thanks for looking at my page. I didn't think anyone did, anymore.

[billy]

good is good and bad is shit. i try to do rhyme though i'm not very good at it. i think it helps teach the poet to work within confines of many forms...the sonnet being but one. bad non rhyming verse i find easier to do as there's less restrictions. many of my fave poems are rhymed and many are not. both work and fail depending on the skill of the poet. it's called poetry, not sonnet or free verse; it's a collection of all forms. as for funny poetry; i prefer funny to depp most days of the week. i prefer to laugh than frown. i'm a smut merchant that thinks all poetry is as easy or hard as a poet is skilled or unskilled. admittedly some write better in one style or another but in general a good poet will be a good poet. they may not be a good humourist though.

[Leanne]

"I prefer funny to depp" -- yeah, that guy's a real downer.

[rowens]

Maybe because I'm from the rural American south, but I didn't know there was anything else to write about or anything in general but things that are supposedly ''dark and twisted.'' Things bust out of the walls here; for instance I just heard a voice from beyond that made the baseless observation that profundity is the cup humor drinks from when it's sick. And that humor is wasted when more than three people in any one place get the joke. As for Leanne's more serious poems, I like those better, but they don't usually seem dark and twisted.

[Leanne]

That's because you can't see dark and twisted from inside dark and twisted

"profundity is the cup humor drinks from when it's sick" -- there's totally a poem in that.

[Achebe]

"I prefer funny to depp" -- yeah, that guy's a real downer.

[ellajam]

Art, and life, are best when the tragic and comic are in balance.

Rhyme is fun to write, all the best rhymes are not taken, and with a lot of work (for me), rhyme can tie a poem together, pull it along. It's an interesting challenge to control it regardless of the subject matter.

If the guy likes ditties let him read those, he speaks more of himself than the poet.

[milo]

If the guy likes ditties let him read those, he speaks more of himself than the poet.

^

[billy]

a great line for a poem

"I prefer funny to depp" -- yeah, that guy's a real downer.

[rayheinrich]

A recent discussion with a (non-poet) acquaintance brought up two issues:

1. He prefers poems that rhyme -- fair enough, that's the tradition he's used to
and
2. He would rather I just wrote the funny poems, because that's what I'm best at.

"I don't like all that other stuff.  It's dark and twisted and I don't want to read something that
makes me uncomfortable.  I come to your page because you're always good for a laugh." -- Discuss.

1. When people tell me this, I say, "I like those too".  I used to say a lot of other useless things,
but nowadays, this one suffices.

2. People who like to read my writing (what portion is immaterial) are saints, their tastes are just fine as is;
I tell them: "I like those too."

Anyone who can write funny poems has mastered all the gadgets necessary to write anything they
damn well please.

1. It is hard to write rhymed verse, because all the good rhymes are gone.

        RhymeZone

It is hard to rhyme and not appear jingly-jangly.

        That's why it's hard.

2. ... Anyone can write funny pomes. Humour is the lowest form of entertainment.

I love you, I appreciate all the sound critiques you've been contributing to PigPen,
and I think those two statements are, intellectually speaking, really-really-stupid.

Funny poems are hard to write, even unintentionally.
Humour's range is vast and profound, from Shaw to Wilde to Python to billy (Benny Hill?).

...that's what I meant - humour isn't art, only tragedy is art. hence humour goes well with rhyme,
like neo-nazis falling in love with each other.

Intellectually speaking:  Really-really-really-stupid.
(Though the "like neo-nazis falling in love with each other" earns you a few points.)

I think light verse sounds better when it rhymes as well.

All other conclusions draw naturally from that one.

I pretty much agree; though, as for myself, I'd leave out the "as".


No need to for me to say more, as it's already been said so well (bold added by me):

... I don't see that there's a real division between rhyme/non-rhyme, simply because to me,
rhyme is just another tool to be used...  

...As for "anyone can write funny poems", I'm going to have to go with no on that one too...
... I don't really separate things into categories ...
... a limerick, or a vile sonnet about bestiality ...

... both work and fail depending on the skill of the poet. it's called poetry, not sonnet or free verse...
... i'm a smut merchant that thinks all poetry is as easy or hard as a poet is skilled or unskilled...

... rural American south ...Things bust out of the walls here; for instance I just heard a voice from beyond
that made the baseless observation that profundity is the cup humor drinks from when it's sick.
And that humor is wasted  when more than three people in any one place get the joke ...

Art, and life, are best when the tragic and comic are in balance ...

Michael Mcneilley, a wonderful poet/friend of mine, knew a bunch of good poets besides Bukowski*.
One he loved especially was Len Krisak. I mention him because he tends to write "old-fashioned"
rhymey stuff -- sonnets, what have you. I usually trot him out whenever some troglodyte starts
mumbling about free-verse-rhymed-whatever. I love his sonnets and most anything else he writes.

I've stuffed a few of his poems inside this spoiler (along with the Bukowski footnote):

    Dated Sonnet     - by Len Krisak

Fifteen, she’d never had a lover’s quarrel
With the world. Doe–eyed and proper–prim;
Kissed softly still; still half a flower girl
And half a faithful, pearls–and–sweater steady.
How could the world have known that she was ready,
In 1963, to deal with him
When he dealt her his death by double–barrel?
Unseen Rebecca of a father, Earl
Would not come out. We held hands in the dim
Light of TV so low we could not hear.
No notice of his service would appear,
And never would I touch her soft brown bangs
Again. Why then these dilatory pangs
Today?  And 60, are you steel still, Carol?




        SONG     - by Len Krisak

The first thin frost
Is clipping afternoon,
And stationery-blue sky has begun

To fade almost to white.
Up high there, in what’s left of light,
Bereft of any hint of sun,
All tints will soon be lost.
And yet there’s still that towering moon
In dirty-dime disguise,
The silver-pin jetliner
That begins to rise,
And, sown by some great hand,
A cast of swallows
Growing ever finer
As my failing vision follows
Toward where they mean to land.




    Lineman       - by Len Krisak

          (Grand Trunk Western Railroad, 1967)

Cocky and freshly spurred, he climbed
Amid the alien corn:  green row
On row arrayed in June and primed.
He climbed and saw those ranked spears grow

As close as ears could get to tracks.
Far off, four rails consumed their ties
Until they were the least of facts
And disappeared before his eyes.

This was his summer job:  to dig
Heels in, step up, belt on, come down.
But slung back in his aerie's rig,
A yellow hard hat for a crown,

The lineman only meant to sight
How far his lonely kingdom ran
From such a pole, at such a height
As might become a brand new man.

He strung the wire and walked till Fall,
To see what might be out of joint.
But nothing there seemed wrong at all,
From vantage clear to vanishing point.




    Held     - by Len Krisak

The raking done, the cut grass bagged and set
Upon the curb, he looks to clear a space
To rest where aching back and deck chair meet.
The twilight settles down at summer's pace
And draws his eye where western sky and sun
Conspire to paint his working day an end
Of gaudy purple fire.  And though retired,
He feels the heft of tools still in his hand.
He holds his drink as if it were a haft
Of ash, and thinks of what that hand has done.
The frosted glass of lemonade perspires
As dusk comes on.  One sugared swallow left,
He lifts it, like a chalice, in a toast
To night and all the toil he misses most.




    Reading the Lees       - by Len Krisak

To build these piles, not difficult at all
If damp and chance and practice will conspire,
I set the claw-foot tines down in the fall—
That time my town forbids the use of fire—
And drag, as if a bird scratching for feed,
Then with a virtuoso's flippant skill
Born out of nothing half so dull as need,
Process to hustle leaves onto a hill.
It grows by dint of half-a-forearm's twist.
The rustling oaks and wads of maples thick
As bank notes mount and mount, it's in the wrist—
The heavy, expert use of it to flick
These butcher-paper-brown and yellow packs
Up high and higher, higher still, until
They start to look like hay in Monet stacks
The farm hands build in Frost.  So, with a will
And arm, those leaves are tossed that long have lain
In sodden strata, mulch re-thatched in heaps.
The tannic acids that have left their stain
On paving stones take hold in sun that steeps
Them in their rotting molds and potpourris
Of Indian summer.  Now I long to smoke
And smell this autumn's simmering of teas
So richer than the summer's, one might choke.
But these are other times and other falls
The winds have driven down.  I mind the law
The way I mind the lawn, as labor calls
Me from my past and from that sense of awe
Once everyone would own to:  smells so strong
And sweet and pungent they'd intoxicate
With incense in ascent in braids of long
Grey steam.  But that was then; it is too late
By half by now to sacrifice the leaves
To late November gods who are not there.
I think of tall brown penny rolls of sheaves,
Then drink the last lost brew that scents the air.




From a Midwest Motel Window     - by Len Krisak

Across the field and far beyond,
Twin elevators rise.  They say,
With concrete pride, that grain–au fond–
Lies at their feet.  Some Pharaoh may

Have raised them to this height, these sleek
Grey columns turning almost white
In noonday sun.  Soaring, they speak
Of other things, no doubt:  of light

That leads the eye toward Heaven, high
Above, of stewards here that seek
To store up bread on Earth.  The sky
Around them knows their worth, and, meek

And blue, recedes to let them show
Their faith in what cannot be topped:
A neon cross prepared to glow
When night comes on, and God's sun's stopped.




    Verona: Sonnet #2     - by Len Krisak

The playground called "the park": three diamonds once,
Then, only one providing fans a cage.
Worn down to khaki talc, the other two
Survived in only faintly rhomboid traces.
On these, the five of us swung for the fences.
(There would have been no point to stolen bases,
Sacrifices, suicides, or bunts.
Besides, those were too hard for kids our age.)
A fly to right was out, force-outs were few,
And when it didn't rain, the skies were blue.
What girls we knew had not yet had their menses.
Well, Bobby's sister Betty--maybe--who
Could homer farther than you ever saw,
And rounding third, elicited pure awe.




==============================================================================
*Michael met Bukowski while he was working as a projectionist at a porno movie theater. Bukowski would come up
and beat on the projection room door when Michael screwed up the focus or the sound level. Both of them soon took
to drinking together in the projection room and not giving a damn when anything screwed up.

[ellajam]

Thanks for the spoiler, Ray.

[shemthepenman]

. . .yep

[Achebe]

An observation - in all the poems you've posted, Ray, the rhyme appears natural only because of the enjambment. How long before it's seen as cliched and unimaginative?
I was being deliberately pig headed in my declamtions earlier: it's fun to be a false prophet.

English isn't a very rhyme - friendly language. Witness words like 'mountain', 'month', 'rhythm', 'anabaptist', 'deer'. Either no rhymes or ridiculous ones. Can't write a tragic epic about an anabaptist deer, for instance.

That's the new poetry challenge for the month.
Good pomes, btw. Thanks for posting.

[Leanne]

rhythm rhymes with fathom if you're a Kiwi... just as squirreled rhymes with world in Edinburgh

[rayheinrich]

An observation - in all the poems you've posted, Ray, the rhyme appears natural only because of the enjambment.

While enjambment is used in a lot of them (but by no means all),  the main technique
Krisak uses is to make his poems so damn good that you pay attention to what he's
showing you and forget about over-emphasizing the rhyme.

But if I really wanted to appear "natural": I'd get rid of the rhyme, the iambic pentameter,
the evenly formatted lines, the allusions, the imagery, a few of the metaphors,
and whatever other poetic skulduggery I could lay my hands on.

Poems are the ne plus ultra of contrivances; there's really not that much natural about them.
The enjoyment, comprehension, and other esthetic fun we derive from them comes from our willingness
(and ability) to momentarily abandon whole bunches of sense and reason.

(Not that I'm a big fan of using tons of enjambment.  See "spoiler" below.)

How long before it's seen as cliched and unimaginative?

Since he's such a wonderful poet, I suspect it will take a really long time.
But that's the process; you can't have new without old.
Luckily for us, our brains and lives are limited enough so that 99% of the audience experiences that freshly-revelated
feeling we all know and love -- unless someone spoils it by telling them the ending (don't you do that).

I was being deliberately pig-headed in my declamations earlier...

Thank goodness, as there's nothing so discomfiting as unintended pig-headedness.  

English isn't a very rhyme - friendly language. Witness words like 'mountain', 'month', 'rhythm', 'Anabaptist', 'deer'. Either no rhymes or ridiculous ones. Can't write a tragic epic about an Anabaptist deer, for instance.

Never fear, it's still quite possible to write that epic by using an old poet's trick my grandpap thought me:

"If you can't rhyme a word, stick it in the middle somewhere."

Or, pull an Emily: Just rhyme it with something that doesn't.


Alternative to enjambment:

You could take this poem:
    Lineman       - by Len Krisak

         (Grand Trunk Western Railroad, 1967)

Cocky and freshly spurred, he climbed
Amid the alien corn:  green row
On row arrayed in June and primed.
He climbed and saw those ranked spears grow

As close as ears could get to tracks.
Far off, four rails consumed their ties
Until they were the least of facts
And disappeared before his eyes.

This was his summer job:  to dig
Heels in, step up, belt on, come down.
But slung back in his aerie's rig,
A yellow hard hat for a crown,

The lineman only meant to sight
How far his lonely kingdom ran
From such a pole, at such a height
As might become a brand new man.

He strung the wire and walked till Fall,
To see what might be out of joint.
But nothing there seemed wrong at all,
From vantage clear to vanishing point.




and unenjamb it:

    Lineman       - by Len Krisak - unenjambed by me

cocky and freshly spurred
he climbed amid the alien corn
green row on row
arrayed in June and primed
he climbed and saw those ranked spears
grow as close as ears could get to tracks

far off
four rails consumed their ties
until they were the least of facts
and disappeared before his eyes

this was his summer job:  
to dig heels in
step up
belt on
come down
slung back in his aerie's rig
a yellow hard hat for a crown

the lineman only meant to sight
how far his lonely kingdom ran
from such a pole
at such a height
as might become a brand new man

he strung the wire and walked till fall
to see what might be out of joint
but nothing there seemed wrong at all
from vantage clear to vanishing point

               

[Erthona]

The most effective music in bars, in general (I'm not talking specialty bars) is upbeat music and I do not refer just to the tempo, but also to the tonal quality and the words. It is not difficult to believe that light verse in terms of ballads* was probably one of the most popular offerings for the traveling bard (or whatever they were really called beyond our romantic notions) aside from the world news. Somewhere along the way in the high rarefied, rancid air of academia humor fell away. There are books upon books of criticism stating why Twain should not be treated seriously, usually based upon the spurious thesis that he was a humorous and humor is not to be taken seriously.



*I am still at a loss as to how that ballad was received by it's original listeners, but methinks--although we read it seriously today--it was probably thought of as a humorous piece. If one is a peasant and has a dislike of lords, it is easy to see why the poem would be funny.