The so-called president has been flooding the twitterverse with a number of gems in the last few days–many disconcerting, many outright frightening. In grappling with those, though, it’s sometimes an older tweet that catches the poet’s eye.
How come “Every time I show
anger, disgust orimpatience,
enemies say I had have a tantrum or meltdown-
stupid or dishonest people! ?”
For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!
Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.
Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !
If toddlers have their terrible twos, does this mean Trumpet is having his atrocious seventies? Not a day goes by that we don’t get one of these! Today’s #TantrumTanka isn’t found, but inspired by.
This judge is way too
judgy for me, and I judge
“the opinion of
this so-called judge…ridicu-
lous.” And sad! Like his black robes 😦
For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!
Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.
Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !
Today we’ll be posting the first of what will eventually be a series of tanka based on, quoting, inspired by, or responding to, Twitter tantrums from the Trumpeter himself. Tanka (click to learn more) is a traditional Japanese form, similar to haiku, that appears in five lines with a 5-7-5-7-7 syllable pattern.
Today’s #TantrumTanka is a found erasure poem, the text lifted verbatim from a Trump Twitter Tantrum dated 8 May 2013. Admittedly, this one didn’t need much erasure, but it helps to make it more tantrum-y. Though he throws these fits repeatedly throughout the day, this lovely website has archived his little gems. Read this, then go to there and see if you get inspired.
“Sorry Losers & haters, but my IQ is the highest
– and you all know it!
Please don’t feel so stupid and
insecure, it’s not your fault!”
For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!
Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.
Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !
Sometimes you get so angry that you can’t find the words. Sometimes you get so angry that you can’t see straight. Vivian Wagner’s found poem encapsulates those very emotional moments.
Vivian Wagner is an associate professor of English at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio. She’s the author of a memoir, Fiddle; One Woman, Four Strings, and 8,000 Miles of Music (Citadel), and a poetry chapbook, The Village (forthcoming from Aldrich Press). She can be found on the web at www.vivianwagner.net and tweeting from @vwagner.
*****
For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!
Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.
Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !
For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. VISUAL ARTISTS ! Do you have something visually poetic that you’d like to submit? GO FOR IT!
Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.
Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !
Just a few days in and it already feels like the world around us is pretty heavy. At times like these, it often helps that we have limericks to keep it light and make us laugh.
There once was a president named Trumpet who liked to have pee with his strumpets. He would set down a cup,
ask Russian harlots to fill it up,
then lean his hair down and dunk it!
For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.
Read, follow, share, re-tweet, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !
For the first 100 days of the Trumpet administration, this blog will feature a new poem of protest, by my own hand and by others. They will be polished gems, or rough cut drafts of rage, or in process pieces searching for peace. They may be haiku or tanka, limericks or lyrics, verses free or fettered. If you would like to submit to this endeavor, please send an email, with poem saved as a word document (.docx) to waxyandpoetic AT gmail DOT com. All rights remain with the author. Please address any formatting preferences in your email. I will post submissions time permitting, with at least one per day. Editing will be limited to obvious errors of spelling and the like.
Read, follow, share, submit, live, love, spread light! Don’t forget to use #100Days100Poems !
The Guggenheim Museum here in New York City recently closed a wonderful retrospective of the Swiss artist duo of Peter Fischli and David Weiss. For those unfamiliar with their work (as I was), I suggest reading this from one of the Gallery Guides who posted on the Guggenheim Museum’s blog. Explore the site further to learn more about the exhibit.
One of the things that struck me about the retrospective was the infectious sense of play that clung to the works and also influenced museum goers of all ages. You could hear laughter and sighs of contentment, bursts of Aha! as jokes or visual puns sunk in; the entire space was filled with the buzz of people not just talking and reacting to the art, but feeding off its energy and fun. I’m currently working on a poem that more directly deals with the themes of Suddenly This Overview and some of the popular opposites that emerge there. But this present blog post comes inspired by a completely different piece in the exhibit, the Large Question Pot (1984), an enormous painted polyurethane and cloth vessel, filled with dozens upon dozens of questions on the inner wall, written in German in various colors.
In keeping with the theme of play (and, in some cases, the juxtapositions found in popular opposites), I wrote answers to some selected questions that the curators translated for the exhibit. These answers, at times short poems, or even poetic bits, or simply sharp responses, were written in quick bursts, as the muse struck, with no rhyme or reason necessarily to unite them, other than the poetic exercise itself. At some point I’d like to find translations of all the queries inside Large Question Pot (my German being, well, non-existent), to continue exploring what Fischli and Weiss bring out of me with their work. Until then, you’ll need to be content with these selections.
Inspired by the image of a coffee mug floating around the social media googlenets, there is great hope (and exciting plans) to make a recording and eventual music video for this little ditty. With both great thanks and apologies to Sir Mix-a-Lot, I bring you
Baby Got Books
Oh my god, Becky, look at her book, it is so big.
She looks like one of those smart guys’ girlfriends.
But you know, who understands those smart guys?
They only talk to her because she looks like a total erudite, ‘kay?
I mean that book is just so big, I can’t believe it’s leather-bound,
it’s like collectable, I mean, gross. Look, she’s just so smart…
I like big books and I cannot lie
You other brothers can’t deny
When a girl walks in with an itty-bitty waist
And a bound thing in your face
You get dumb, then I pull up tough
‘Cause I noticed that book was stuffed
Deep with the knowledge I’m seekin’,
I’m hooked and I can’t stop readin’.
Oh baby, I wanna get wit cha, and see a lecture!
My colleagues tried to warn me,
but that book you got makes me so horny!
Ooo, soft- or hard-back, you say you wanna meet in the stacks?
Well choose me, peruse me, ’cause you ain’t that average groupie.
I’ve seen them readin’, to hell with Netflix streamin’
She’s smart, off-chart, got it going in HeadStart.
I’m tired of magazines sayin’ dumb girls are the thing
Take the average scholar and ask him that,
She’s gotta read the stacks!
So fellahs? Yeah! X2
Has your girlfriend got a book? Hell yeah!
Tell her to read it! Read it! X2
Baby got books — “Librarian face with half-price hard-back”
Baby got books! etc
I like ’em bound and thick, and when you read an epic
I just can’t help myself, I’m actin’ like an animal,
Now here’s my scandal:
I want get you home and huh
read out loud huh huh
I’m not talkin’ ’bout Playboy, ’cause literary novels bring the joy
I want ’em real thick and juicy
So read that juicy novel, Reads-a-lot’s in trouble
Beggin’ for a piece of that novel
So I’m lookin’ at youtube videos, lame-brained bimbos, empty heads like O’s
You can have them bimbos, my women will read Calvino.
A word to the thick book readers I wanna get wit cha
I won’t cuss or hit ya
but I gotta be straight when I say I wanna read
Til the break of dawn, this book’s got it going on.
A lot of simps won’t like this song
‘Cause them punks like to skim it and Cliff it
And I’d rather stay and read
‘Cause it’s long and I’m strong and I’m down to get my fiction on
So ladies yeah X2
You wanna read some Bukowski? Yeah!
then turn around, pull it out
Even dumb boys got to shout “BABY GOT BOOKS!”
Yeah, when it comes to females, Cosmo ain’t got nothin’ to do with my selection. Novels, plays, poetry? Haha, yeah, especially from the library.
Baby got books…
So your girlfriend holds a Samsung
Playin’ bootleg tracks from Hanson
But Hanson ain’t got a Kindle in the mix on their Samsung
My smart phone apps don’t want none unless you got books hun!
You can watch TV or Netflix, but please don’t lose those books
Some morons wanna play that hard role
And tell you that the book can go,
so they toss it, and leave it, and I pull up quick to reread it!
So the TV you got is flat, but I ain’t down with that
‘Cause the font is small and the plot gets thickened
And I’m thinkin’ bout readin;
To the eyecandy things flippin through magazines,
You ain’t it miss thing.
Gimme a scholar make me hollah,
Tolstoy and Shakespeare she found ballah!
Some knucklehead tried to diss ’cause his girls read my booklist
He had books but he chose to skim ’em, so I pull up quick to read with ’em
So ladies if the book is bound, and you want a literary throw-down
Dial 1-900-Reads-a-lot and kick them bookish thoughts
Baby got books
“Classics on the Kindle and she got much books” X3
Waxy & Poetic 