Monday, March 17, 2008

Humor in Poetry...Lunch With Margaret

A friend and I were discussing humorous poetry recently. I write it off and on and enjoy it but have found that The Dead Mule: School of Southern Literature has been the only journal to appreciate and publish my humorous offerings over the years (Thank you, Dead Mule). The subject serrendipitously came up in two blogs this week. David Caddy , editor of the English print journal, Tears in the Fence, discusses Tom Raworth, an English poet, who was influenced by humor and wrote humor and Ron Silliman in today's blog discusses humor on the poetry of Jonathan Williams. Both are excellent articles.


Lunch With Margaret



Size 40 D's resting
on our fav lunch table,
she dissects
Saturday's date.
'It was THIS big';
arms flung wide.
Tea crashes into
my lap, drips onto floor.

I blush.
Pretend she discusses
the size steak ordered.

'And then he did THAT'.
Harder to stick
with steak story now.
She gestures, demonstrates,
sending fork,
lettuce attached,
to the plate of the
elderly man,
two tables away.

A tornado,
my friend Margaret.

Next week we meet
to discuss Sam.
Her latest..
This time I have
a plan:
Raincoat
Crash helmet
Walkman blaring
1812 Overture into both ears,
earpieces discretely tucked
under helmet.


Published in The Dead Mule

Art: Untitled by Cindy (her publishing name. No last name). She gave me permission years back to use this art with my poem, but her website has since disappeared.

12 comments:

ButtonHole said...

This is great! Love it.

DeadMule said...

Thanks for the shout-out. The Mule loves you, Pris.

Anonymous said...

Hi Pris
This is great and I love the art...it's good to have some humour thrown in there sometimes.
In the States right now with Richie...cold too...brrrrrr.

Pris said...

Thanks for the comments...and I love the Mule, too!

Ellen, Ritchie needs to move south where it's warm:-) Glad you finally got there despite missing a connection.

Scot said...

Sitting here smiling

Monique said...

love humour in poetry. Gerald Locklin is my hero in that department. Cartoon is fabulous too.

Collin Kelley said...

Fun poem!

Jim K. said...

Good fun..would make a
good video skit, too.

Pris said...

Thanks again, all of you. Hey, Jim. Want to write the skit??:-)

Jim K. said...

Heh..I haven't done plays before.

Pat Paulk said...

I love this. I'm also envious.

Pris said...

Hey Pat, thanks, but you have no reason to be. You're great!