A Poet of the People

In the last two days I've had several poems accepted for publication, including a sly and clever piece (if I do say so myself) on the European debt crisis.  I enjoy writing verse about the financial misery of others.  I also enjoy writing about Twinkies and used books (some other poetic themes that will soon be making their way into print).

Not all of my poetry is light verse . . . in fact, most of it is morbid.  I tend to write poems about death, or dying, or backed up septic systems, and some of my poems deal in even darker subject matter:  like automobiles that won't start on cold mornings, gloomy paint colors, or photographs of my grandmother.  I also lean heavily toward verses exploring seepage from lanced boils, or really bad coffee, or poems about editors who keep my writing for a year before rejecting it.

In short, I write about real issues.  I am a poet of the people, much like Walt Whitman (who was the first poet to write about boil seepage using free verse).

I also love to hob-nob with people who appreciate poetry, fans who ask questions like, "Have you ever made love and recited a poem at the same time?" 

Naturally, I have . . . but this is just another example of how authentic I am, how real, how personable, and why my wife knows a sonnet when she hears one.  My wife can also tell the difference between a villanelle and a haiku, and on weekends we explore esoteric themes from Baudelaire.

If you don't understand any of this, don't worry.  That's why I write poetry: to say in touch with the peasants and to insure that poems about dishwashing detergent, oil changes, and decaying rabbit carcasses will still be in vogue two hundred years from now.  I also write poems about grease wrenches, hemorrhoids, and the Marquis de Sade.  Sometimes I explore potato salad in free verse form or write epic couplets about cleaning out the refrigerator crisper.  My parody of Shakespeare's 12th sonnet is well known in the environs of Sullivan county and a lady named Mabel once swooned over my biographical triptych about Sir Walter Raleigh's spittoon.

As you can see, I'm making quite a name for myself as a "humanitarian poet"--one of those down-to-earth writers who understands people: how they think, how they feel, and where they shop for toiletries.  I've also got poems about Kroger and Bed Bath and Beyond.  Dick's seems interested in some of my poems about soccer balls, plastic tent pegs, and billiard chalk. 

Certainly, I can't quit my day job to write poetry or make love all day (though I have tried).  I simply take pleasure in knowing that I am writing poetry that touches the heart and the spleen.  My editors know this.  That's why they don't pay me much . . . they know great poets must suffer like the masses.

Soon I'm going to launch into my series of poems about 40-watt light bulbs, and by next month I should be completing my collection of verses about the demise of onion skin paper.  Watch also for my poems about dull lawnmower blades and other poems about those little water chestnuts that are so popular in Chinese cousine. 

No need to thank me for being in touch.  It's what I do.