Sunday, November 21, 2010

Problems With Poetry


Over the past six months I've read at least twenty books of poetry, including both of the anthologies of contemporary American verse collected by (then) U.S. Poet Laureate, Billy Collins: Poetry 180. I've enjoyed these slim collections of 180 poems, all highly-readable and accessible verse, and ol' Billy did a great job bringing the whole shebang together.

About 16 months ago I also began writing poetry on a more focused basis. During my college years I wrote poetry all the time, hundreds of poems actually, but I burned those long ago for the dross that they were. But I'm finding that the poems I've turned out in the past few months aren't bad, and I now have quite a number slated for publication in 2011 in various literary journals.

Still, I lament the passing of light verse from our social fabric, and continue to try my hand at the humorous vein. Here's one I wrote over a year ago. And, since no one wants to publish it in print, I'll publish it here. Anyway, I like it.

Thesaurus

From Greek the name sounds rather scary
(A prehistoric dictionary?)
But as for books which are canorous
My money goes to the thesaurus.
Tucked inside its pages slim
One finds the perfect synonym
For words like hack or Hadrosaurus
For liver, heart, or the pylorus--
And every word or participle
Dangles there inside its middle:
A type of literary chorus
Singing words that ring sonorous
And on the page look quite decorous
Because they come from the thesaurus.

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