Choosing a Thermometer
If tubes hypoglottal
Can cause you to throttle,
And things in your ears
Breed irrational fears,
And under your armpits
Occasion for harm sits,
While probes in your nose
May precipitate flows,
Then you I expect’ll
Most likely want rectal.
From Hesiod
Cronus, while his dad was screwing,
Took a scythe and did some hewing.
Daddy’s balls and pecker tumbled—
The old man’s pride was duly humbled.
His genitals fell in the ocean
Where the whitecaps’ choppy motion
Whipped them to a fine parfait:
The goddess of erotic play.
And that’s how Aphrodite starts—
Foam churned up from private parts.
The New Third Reich
The Belgians, with their beer and clogs—
A perfect blend of Krauts and Frogs.
They pass their laws and flex their muscles
High up on a perch in Brussels.
A Job Interview at the English Department
They’re troubled that you lecture to the class.
You answer: “Students do not know a thing—
When dealing with a freshman who’s an ass
You can’t expect him suddenly to bring
Sharp insight to the study of a text.”
The Chair harrumphs and shuffles up some papers;
The others seem intolerably vexed
As if they had dyspepsia, or vapors.
A harridan from Women’s Studies asks
If you’re committed to transgendered readings.
You smile, and say the class has major tasks
And no time for such trivial proceedings.
They all look pained, but someone keeps his cool
And thanks you for your visit to the school.
—all from In Your Face Poems (2005)
Joseph S. Salemi has published five books of poetry, and his poems, translations and scholarly articles have appeared in over one hundred publications world-wide. He is the editor of the literary magazine TRINACRIA and writes for Expansive Poetry On-line. He teaches in the Department of Humanities at New York University and in the Department of Classical Languages at Hunter College.
OK, Joe – Jack Daniels, Wild Turkey, or Seagram’s?? A side of you I hadn’t seen yet! 🙂 Thanks for Rye humor –
Mark, I generally choose bourbon as my hard drink, but Kip Anderson has made me aware of the greatness of single-malt Scotches and really good rye. I’m glad you liked the poems!
Nice in your face poetry. Being the hubby of a nurse I had the hardiest chuckle from “Choosing a Thermometer.” Thanks, Joseph, I needed some laughter today!
Many thanks, Jeff. I wrote the thermometer poem several years ago, and I understand that temperature in hospitals is now taken with a small tab of paper that is placed for a few seconds in a patient’s mouth. When it’s removed from the patient’s mouth, there is an indication of temperature on it.
A hundred years from now, I expect my poem will be experienced in the same way that we might feel about a poem that describes starting up a car’s ignition with a crank shaft.
Joe, the first two are hilarious—and the craft is so precise that the humor lands even harder. The last two, paired with the revelation that they were written twenty-odd years ago, honestly startled me. I shouldn’t have been surprised, of course, but when our days are crowded with the usual struggles and distractions, it’s easy to forget how long those world-shaping rumblings have been building in government and academia.
I’m taking this as another wake-up call. Thanks, Joseph.
Many thanks, Mike. I wanted all the poems in “In Your Face Poems” to be sharp and comical at the same time. Yes, “The New Third Reich” is most definitely the European Union, run by rich Germans and bureaucratic Belgians. As for academia, the dry-rot has existed ever since the 1960s, and in some schools long before that.
I remember these, Joseph, and they are all still hysterically funny. I once showed them (as they first appeared in one of Count Leo’s publications) to my new producer/director at The Victory Garden, and she got a good laugh out of it. Poetry can be serious even if it is only seriously funny. Both of us were young once, and someday, God willing, our current ages will seem fairly young.
Kip, that’s correct — they first appeared in Count Yankevich’s website (The Pennsylvania Review), in the section that collected small books being published by his New Formalist Press. Back then, Leo Yankevich was the only publisher brave enough to handle this kind of truly transgressive material, while all the other so-called “conservative” venues were too worried about the possible reactions of Po-Biz Incorporated.
“Thermometer” is probably the most inventive of this great quartet (armpit / harm sits is terrific. “Hesiod” has the giddy quality I’d anticipate in a rascally Italian ragazzo, eager to inscribe the ditty in a corner of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. The quick sneer at (the) Belgians is richly deserved–peace-loving wreckers of civilization.
The interview committee strikes closest to home. My son-in-law, PhD in philosophy almost in hand, time at Berkeley, Stanford, and Oxford behind him, as well as his studies and teaching at U of T, got his 1st rejection in his quest for a job–a form, not even a form letter, from a community college in Sacramento. Not the start of a trend, I hope, but I’m definitely not smelling roses. Have you depicted the reaction to his lecture style& content (should he ever get that far)?
I can’t answer for how every college or university deals with applicants, but I can tell you what my half-century experience in academia has taught me.
If the applicant is a white male, he is at an immediate disadvantage, exactly as a black male would have been if he had applied for membership in an exclusive men’s club in the 1890s. That would be Strike One.
If he is a Roman Catholic and the fact were known, he’d also be strongly opposed by the majority of the hiring committee, though the issue would never come up in public, but only in the private conferences of the hiring committee. That would be Strike Two.
If he has a serious academic background of scholarship and teaching experience (as your son-in-law seems to have), he would face opposition based on envy and fear. This would be especially true when applying for a position at a community college. That would be Strike Three.
If he is a political conservative (or just a moderate) and the fact were known, it would mean an immediate rejection of his application, probably without even the courtesy of an interview. That would be Strike Four.
Other factors that would wreck his chances would be these: Is he very obviously a heterosexual? Does he speak a perfectly correct English? Does he wear a nicely tailored suit and a tie? Does he lecture to his classes? Does he seem calm and rational rather than enthusiastic and energetic? Any of these might constitute Strike Five.
These are indeed “in your face” poems, Joe – and boy am I glad of it! You go a bit beyond irreverent wit deep into the territory of biting satire. Each one is a perfect, dangerous jewel which offers a laugh along with a skewer.
“Choosing a Thermometer” is notable as a “list” poem with inventive rhymes and a sharp insult to its reader-target. It predates Covid but certainly pegs a type who is very particular about his or her treatment. I could imagine a companion poem which hand-wrings over the issue of where and how to place a mask.
“From Hesiod” takes an ancient myth and describes in modern terms – terms which rather take the magic out of the story. This plain speaking regarding something usually chiseled out of marble makes the myth hilarious. Your very short stanzas present a sing-song quality which actually makes the use of language even funnier. In my view, there is a correlation between the length of the line and the seriousness of the poem. I find it difficult to not have cognitive dissonance when a “serious” poem is written in tetrameter or (even worse) trimeter. These are line-lengths which are very susceptible to that “sing-song” quality I mention and this undermines an attempt at pathos or depth. I don’t say it’s impossible, but I do think it’s a fight against the current.
Your poem on Belgium is not only funny but as delightfully politically incorrect as it is piercingly accurate. Krauts and Frogs are both interestingly old-fashioned terms which gives a suggestion that every country has had its moments of shame and little Belgium — a country whose identity is pilfered from the worst aspects of its more powerful neighbors — is next.
My favorite of the four poems is “Job Interview” which seems infused with personal knowledge as well as a withering view of academia. The rhymes are terrific as is the handling of dialogue – something not all poets are adept at but that you always offer with great finesse and balance. The divide which you describe between the speaker and the pressures put upon him by other academics rings true and is something I find infuriating. Students are in school to learn, are they not? Does that not demand being on the receiving end of a lecture? And why in hell is transgender “readings” or any kind of gender studies given the least bit of time let alone respect? I can only imagine how much worse it must now be — especially when we see in the news the way too many students have become entitled, arrogant and demanding to the point of being both anarchistic and incompetent. I’m not surprised the speaker’s common sense was enough to get him a “don’t call us we’ll call you” response.
Those certainly are “In Your Face Poems” prodding sensitive subjects that are as deserving as they are entertaining. I am so happy that you have displayed another side of you and your poetic accomplishments. Your sharp wit is on display in the first three and your target in the fourth is directly impaled.
Thank you, Roy. I wanted to post some comical and impishly facetious poems here at the SCP. There are more in “In Your Face Poems” that are simply too raw for publication here.
Brian, your critical insight into poems never fails — and is a lot sharper than the great majority of third-raters in our English Departments. Thank you for these perceptive comments.
The thermometer piece is indeed a list poem, a traditional form that is neglected today. My main impulse in composing it was the possibilities of rhyme, and the chance to use the contraction “expect’ll” as a rhyme for “rectal.” It had to be brief because there aren’t that many really cute and original rhymes for a long poem, and a comic piece should be short. I tried to imagine the speaker as a frustrated doctor trying to get a temperature reading from a finicky patient.
Your very first comment on the Hesiod poem shows your critical acumen — you have zeroed in on EXACTLY what I wanted: to remove the magical and marmoreal tone that far too many modern poems alluding to ancient myths seem to have. One contemporary poet (an enemy of mine) has called such poems “canon poems,” and I think he is correct about the tendency of such poems to pomposity and grandiose pretension. I wanted instead (as Julian Woodruff said in his post above) for the poem to seem like a graffito scratched by a smirking Italian ragazzo on a wall in Pompeii. I don’t see why a poem dealing with an ancient myth has to be as reverential as the atmosphere in a museum. Let it be as sexually freaky as many of those ancient myths were. I have an essay on Mythology and Modernism that I will submit to the SCP, giving my views more fully on this matter.
The Belgians? Ah, yes — even Baudelaire hated them for their philistine bourgeois conformism and money-grubbing. Taking a small, unimportant country and putting it in administrative and bureaucratic charge of all of Europe was a mistake of colossal proportions.
“Job Interview” comes right from my own experiences and those of many other white males applying for an academic position. You wouldn’t believe the level of barely concealed animosity and malice at those interviews, assuming you are spectacularly lucky enough to be called for one. In my case, being an Italian-American was an additional Strike, since we as a group are especially hated for our very close attachment to family.
As for lectures, most candidates at an interview make a big show of being “student oriented,” telling how they place chairs in a circle, call every student by his or her first name, use lots of audiovisual aids, encourage “group-work and discussion,” and grade exams and papers “holistically” — whatever the swiving hell that means. But if a candidate is hired, he’ll lecture to the class just like everyone else does. A lot of what goes on in academia is performative, play-acting imposture.
From a rectal reading
To genital seeding.
And from EU voodoo
To PC hoodoo.
Nuff said. Thanks for the enlightenment, especially on poor old Cronos’s genitalia failure.
“Genitalia failure”? Wow, Paul, that’s a great one! I think you should compose a comic poem using it.
I wanted the imagery of Cronus’ severed genitals mixing with white sea foam to create Aphrodite to be perceived as parallel to the normal exudation of bodily fluids that is produced during the act of intercourse.
Excellent comedy, indeed — especially the thermometer, with its hilarious rhymes, and the irony of the Job Interview.
Many thanks, Cynthia!
All of these are brilliant! This is what poetry is meant to be: relevant, hard-hitting, clever, yet deftly crafted. It’s hard to pick a favorite. I think I choose “From Hesiod,” which is an orthodox retelling of a classic myth, but phrased in blunt colloquial language, and ending with a keen insight. “A Job Interview” spoke to me personally — the scene you paint is exactly why I didn’t go into academia, and thank you for reminding me why. Please tell me this is not a recounting of an actual experience (although I suspect it is). “Thermometer” and “New Third Reich” were also insightful, each in their very different ways. The first reminds me of my children (and the multitudes of adult children) who complain about minor inconveniences not realizing what the other options are.
Thank you, Adam, for these kind words. “A Job Interview” is more of a pastiche than a full account of an actual event. Some of it happened in real interviews I had, and others were from things told to me by other interviewees. Like many poems, it is a mixture of reality, fictive mimesis, and things overheard.
Joe, I thank you wholeheartedly for the tears of laughter streaming down my face. I also thank you for a masterclass in humorous poetry. Each of your poetic treasures packs a powerful punchline down to impeccable rhyme and rhythm. I have learned poetry of this ilk is most unforgiving – any offbeat blip will ruin the effect. Laughter is the litmus test. Joe, thank you!
Many thanks, Susan. I definitely wanted the poems to be funny, and to evoke a smile or a laugh. And I agree — the shorter a comic poem, the more necessity for absolute perfection in its structure. You’re right about the “offbeat blip.”
I once had an interview for a church position that went almost exactly as you describe in that final poem. It’s good to laugh at such moments although the experience itself was sadly maudlin. Nice stuff, nicely told.
Thanks for your comments, James. I suppose every institution (secular or ecclesiastical) has a fixed set of ideas concerning whom they hire. Sometimes that’s bad, but other times it can be helpful. I once worked in a Classics department where the chairman told the hiring committee this: “Remember: we don’t hire any DAFWAAPs.”
That was his acronym for “Dumb-Ass Fucks With An Attitude Problem.” Working in that department was blissfully idyllic — everybody was sane, rational, and calm.
These are all great fun, Joe. I’m not sure the Belgians will be too pleased but I enjoyed the read.
No-one can beat Hesiod for out-and-out wackiness. It’s great to see something humorous based on one of his many weird tales from the Theogony. Things don’t work out too well for Cronus in the end.
Thank you, Morrison. Yes, poor Cronus got the short end of the stick — or scythe, to be more precise.