So after Billy Collins, I hope we all recognized that strangling meaning out of a poem is torturing the poem, killing it. My next poem is to teach you to enjoy poetry. Have some fun with it. Words can be fun. They can be whimsical. A lot of people view poets as very serious, or very sad people. We are idealists, romantics, fools, and scholars too. However, I have a few poems here that argue against it. One is from Catullus, a Roman poet who was a contemporary of Horace, one of the great poets. Catullus writes a lot about the merits drinking and debauchery. He liked to have a good time. Here also is another poem by Billy Collins. In this poem he is mocking a poet who is taking a serious stance on a rather obscure and strange metaphor. Here also is another contemporary, TIm Seibles, who I learned from at ODU. He is amazing. His poem enters the world of cartoons and fairy tales. It is just fun to read the poem as Bugs Bunny and to smile as you envision this encounter.
Have fun with poems. Poems celebrate language. They celebrate the silly, the goofy, the hysterical, and the obtuse. It is ok to smile when reading a poem. I promise.
Rory
Catullus 13
1. You will dine well, my Fabullus, with me
2 in a few days, if the gods favor you,
3 if with you bring with you a good and great
4 meal, not without a fair-skinned girl
5 and wine and wit and with all the banter.
6 If these, I say, you bring, our charming friend,
7 you will dine well, for the purse of your Catullus
8 is full of cobwebs.
9 But in exchange you will receive undiluted love
10 or whatever is more sweet or more elegant:
11 for I will give perfume, which to my girl
12 Venus and Cupid have given,
13 (which) when you will smell (it), you will ask the gods,
14 to make you, Fabullus, all nose.
Litany
You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon
You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.
It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.
I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.
Billy Collins
What Bugs Bunny Said to Red Riding Hood
amongst the fanged and the fluffy?
Grandma, huh?
Some ol bag too lazy to pick up a pot, too feeble
to flip a flapjack—
and you all dolled up like a fire engine
to cruise these woods?
She been livin in a CrackerJack box or something?
This is a tough neighborhood, mutton chops—
you gotchur badgers, your wild boar, your
hardcore grizzlies and lately,
this one wolf’s been actin pretty big and bad.
Didn anybody ever tell you it ain’t smart
to stick out in wild places?
Friendly? You want friendly you better
try Detroit. I mean
you’re safe wit me, sweetcakes,
but I ain’t a meat-eater.
didn’cha? Yeah, well, little Miss Sunshine—
little Miss I’m-so-much-cuter-than-thee—
got caught on one of her sneaky porridge runs
and the Three Bears weren’t in the mood:
so last week the game warden nabs baby bear
passin out her fingers to his pals.
turn off her soaps, take a peek at a newspaper,
turn on some cartoons, for Pete’s sake:
this woyld is about teeth, bubble buns—who’s bitin
and who’s gettin bit. The noyve a’that broad
sendin you out here lookin like a ripe tomata.
Why don’t she just hang a sign around your neck:
Get over here and bite my legs off!
Cover me wit mustid—call me a hotdawg!
Listen, Red, I’d hate for somethin unpleasant
to find you out here all alone.
Grandma-schmandma—let’er call Domino’s.
They’re paid to deliver. Besides, toots,
it’s already later than you think—
get a load a’that chubby moon up there.
They ran that potato-head outta town two months ago—
tryin ta make friends all the time—
he makes you sick after awhile.
cold uncola back at my place—whaddaya say?
Say, good lookin, what brings you out thisaway
This was your mother’s idea?
I mean, what’s up, doc?
You heard about Goldie Locks, didn’cha? Well,
That’s right. Maybe your motha should
Alright, alright, I’ll stop.
Ya can’t count on Casper tonight either.
Look, Cinderella, I got some candles and some
Got any artichokies in that basket?
Tim Seibles
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