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Board Administrator Username: mjm Post Number: 4419 Registered: 11-1998 |
Honorable Mention Up against the wall poetic mothers! alan addotto Pulling on the academic leg, or--- all a matter of degree They (you know the ubiquitous “they”) asked what I thought (in big letters)----PO-ET-RY “…ought to be.” I knew what it was supposed to be for me, but then again who the hell could say what it should be for them? Because they, after all, had me “up against the wall” in the usual cliched metaphorical way --- Review board for my Master’s thesis Creative Writing degree ---nineteen eighty three. and at the time It was their club I wanted to join rhyme rhyme rhymity rhyme. They asked me if I knew of “the perfect piece of poetry.” on the desk they were sitting behind was a stack of mimeo paper all virgin and white neatly stacked and precisely right in a wire basket. So I said yes I could show them the perfect poem took four pieces of blank paper and handed them each one “There you go” I said “the perfect poem.” knowing full well I could lose my academic head for temerity alone or be sent to a special Impertinence Hell. Three of the four- (the older ones) just sat there struck dumb but the younger one was quicker on his mental feet (mixing metaphors---minus two points) said “Could you be more specific and give us a more concrete example, that is if you don’t mind!” in a snotty ‘I finally showed this smart ass, today’ puffed up, pompous, self-important sort of a way. So I thought for a while, got another sheet of paper took out a pen from the expensive embossed leather penholder. and wrote: “Good poetry should be like naked babies squirting each other with a hose on a concrete driveway on a warm springturningsummer day.” I Stood up handed what I’d written to the question man and left. I guess they are probably, God knows, still worrying if someone remembered to turn off the water. |
