—from A Gallery of Ethopaths
The bookshops that we used to see
Were citadels of literacy.
Classics of grace and wit and style
Greeted your glance in every aisle.
Today, those humane texts are fewer—
A bookstore is a backed-up sewer
Clogged with the bilge the public guzzles:
Health-food cookbooks, crossword puzzles,
Tracts on UFOs, confessions,
Ghosted memoirs and impressions
Of some fatuous politician,
Starlet, drug-czar, or musician;
Best-sellers pumped by frantic hype,
Celeb-bios, mindless tripe.
But the old bookshop’s sad decline
Has its worst symptom in this sign—
Go to the store, make this discovery:
Books on “self-help” or on “recovery”
Stretched in long rows from shelf to shelf
Proclaiming that one’s poor battered self
Can be redeemed, restored, uplifted,
And have its mental bearings shifted.
Composed by a slew of worthless quacks,
Therapists, gurus, or plain hacks
Spouting a daft, dime-store psychology
As valid as ouija, or phrenology,
These books all say they’ll change your life
Delivering you from mental strife
Through mantras, exercise, or diet
Meant to restore your peace and quiet.
If you’re a meek and timid nerd
Who’s never had his passions stirred,
They’ll train you to be a roaring lion
Like Joshua and the kings of Zion.
If you’re a plain and frumpish lady
They’ll make you a hot, seductive, shady
Femme fatale whose curving hip
Will turn men’s heads and make them flip.
If you’re crippled by angst or doubt
They’ll show you the way to climb right out
And up from that slough’s foul dereliction
And face the world with new conviction.
If you’re upset, or tense, or fretful,
If you’re slow-witted, or forgetful,
If you’re a child who was maltreated,
If you’re too dull, or too conceited,
If your willpower’s non-existent,
If your decisions are inconsistent,
If you’re a spouse who has been battered,
If your esteem’s been badly shattered,
If you were sexually molested,
If you’re bulimic or flat-chested,
If you’re a long-term drug abuser,
If you’re a simple, brain-dead loser,
These books claim they can save your bacon—
They’ll show you how you’ve been mistaken.
The things you thought were real defects
Are pure illusion. Check the text
And find out how to shed your troubles
As easily as champagne bubbles.
Such volumes promise brand-new vision—
All that you need is firm decision
Plus twenty dollars for the book.
If you believe this, you’re one dumb schnook,
For, like cosmetics from a jar,
These books say: Don’t be what you are.
A notion far more asinine
Than changing piss to vintage wine.
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.
Like Milton’s twin poems, “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” I’d love to see a good twin to this spot-on dressing down of contemporary “book stores.” I laughed and “Amened” my way through this whole, dancing (like Ali, I mean) tirade. Thanks for putting into beautiful word what we’ve all felt but lacked the ability to express.
Wow! Great stuff and it all scans perfectly with sense and cogency. It reminded me of some of the lyrics from My Fair Lady. And that’s a compliment! I do have one quibble. The tendency to capitalize the first word of each line, whether it begins a sentence or not. It undermines – in my opinion – the cleverness of the language and slows things up, as well as giving an old-fashioned demeanor to a fresh face. New wine in old bottles, as it were. Anyway, that’s my humble opinion.
Thanks to both of you for your kind comments. I’m grateful, and happy that the passage pleases.
As for initial capitals, I always use them because they have been the standard practice in Western poetry since the invention of printing. But more importantly, because NOT having them makes the left-hand side of a poem look irredeemably ugly. Without initial caps, the left-hand side is a hodge-podge of small and capital letters, mixed randomly as a result of proper names or the start of a new sentence. And in formalist poetry it is usually a sign that the poet is trying to suck up to the Free Verse Establishment, by showing off that he too is “modern.”
Oh, ouch! “Suck up” to free verse? Not me. Not ever. I always let the logic and flow of a sentence continue through the enjambment as if it were prose rather than verse. If I’m violating some unforgiveable norm of formal verse, I guess I’ll just have to violate it. It just makes more sense to me, and makes poetry more readable (IMHO).
Dear Joe –
I have seen other sections of your long work on Ethopaths, and loved every one of them. How you manage to go on at such length and make everything caustic, pointed and relevant I don’t know – but you do.
If you do put them all together in a book, be sure to let us know where we can get it. Such a book would be a bible of contemporary faults, of which we have altogether too many.
I truly believe, as I know you do, that this is a dark age. We are at a tipping point where we are in danger of losing our civilization. And to think we are doing this all to ourselves beggars belief. Well, perhaps with some help from the dark forces.
Listen up, people, Joseph Salemi is warning us with sardonic wit and piercing descriptions what may well happen to us, and at our peril. Not pleasant to think about, but it’s well past time someone did.
Thanks, Joseph.
A searing indictment of modernism and where its core values have led us; this poem is another powerful reminder that we can push back against the marauders of our mental sanity, as Joseph Salemi so eloquently does. For, as GK Chesterton observed long ago, ‘The truth is, the modern world has had a mental breakdown’.
The voice of the metropolitan elite sneering and condescending; denying humanity its frailty. A pronouncement on the stupidity of ordinary people who are struggling through tumultuous economic and political times. Where is the compassion Christianity demands for the weak and lost. A polemic of our unequal times from the lofty spires of academia.
Joe, you sound like Michael Burch. Your mewling and positioning mark you as a weak-kneed and slack-jawed ne’er-do-well. If this is the best virtue-signaling you can come up with, then you will be happiest if you just crawl back down into your hole. You have no place among those who strive for excellence.
Confusing C.B. have you a split personality.
Sock it to ’em, Joe. Unfortunately, the people who most need to read your work will never see it, and if they ever did, they would consign you to the right lunatic fringe because they are, and have always been, incapable of original and cogent thought. You trump Trump when it comes to expressing your honest opinions in a straightforward manner.
“Joe Bloggs” is a fake name used commonly in the UK as a way to remain anonymous. It functions like “John Q. Public” or “Joe Blow” here in the United States.
This particular “Joe Bloggs” is a coward who won’t reveal his real name. Whoever he is, his brain is filled with emoticons, not thoughts.
Quiet! Joe Bloggs – back to the Blogosphere with you.
With reference to the ‘lofty spires of academia’: you name Christianity whose lofty spires stood high above the villages and towns – as a symbol of where hope and teaching may be found. They were not there to ‘inspire’ humanity to copy each other’s frailties in an attempt to be ‘equal’.
Joseph – your elegant verse is crystal clear and dire in its warning. Indeed, the political and social world fermenting around us might be viewed as a reflection of the same falling of standards and rejection of all things conservative as you enumerate in this work. I salute you, Joseph. And Sally – you write my thoughts exactly. Thank you.
Little voices — or great voices — crying out in the wilderness. It’s the same here as it is down under, and I am always pleased to hear from persons of note from the antipodes. Freedom and truth are universal values, except in places — i.e. mindsets — where dissimulation & perverse distortions of normative values are considered de rigueur.
Exactly right C.B.! The decay of self-discipline, and the normalization of lower standards are evident worldwide. At least Dr. Salemi is an academic who is prepared to speaks as he sees it, rather than follow the prevailing view.
Cleverly written and so true.
He beats his bosom loud and long
In his medieval comfort zone
Where hidebound folks think we belong
Back in an age of bronze and stone
Where only he may call the shots
And wise policies are banned
For fear they may be commie plots
To undermine his fatherland
Where no one ever gets a tat
For fear of vexing dainty eyes
Forever scanning this or that
For still more people to despise
And surely justified by faith
Which will not always introspect
To chase off paranoia’s wraith
Before his peace of mind gets wrecked
As if he was some angry elf
Struggling…not to mess himself.
Dear Mr. Spicer,
You may have issues with Mr. Salemi (it is within his power, as the poet of the post, to have your comment removed, so it remains here only at his mercy), but “commie plots,” malicious attempts to undermine the foundational values of our civilization through a socialist agenda, are an actual issue in this country, out in the open, with Antifa and the Democratic Socialists now on the scene and the insidious nature of the Chinese Communist Party’s vile trade practices and human rights atrocities now fully exposed. We should indeed be worried about communist influences!
Read more here: https://www.theepochtimes.com/chapter-5-infiltrating-the-west_2562641.html
A commie plot to truly fear
And that’s insidiously near
Is pushed by those who seem sincere
But have a logic clearly queer.
No, Mr. Mantyk, please leave Spicer’s wretched verse up there. Its poor quality is a good indication of his lack of poetic talent. In any case, I’ve been working on a scholarly essay on Skeltonics, so here’s my Skelton-inspired answer to Spicer’s effusion:
A Flyting for Gregory Spicer
Note that Spicer (poor old Greg)
Has laid another rotten egg.
His arguments amount to this:
“I hate Salemi, and I’ll diss
Whatever he may write or say!
I can’t keep silent one more day!
He puts poor losers through the screws,
And he doesn’t like tattoos!”
Well, that’s fine. I couldn’t care
What Spicer feels — not one damned hair.
The lousy bit of verse he’s written
Just indicates that he’s been smitten
By the spite of envy’s malice,
And he’s quaffed mad anger’s chalice.
Spicer, are you truly pissed?
Well, too bad — you won’t be missed
If you choose to disappear
Or beat a quick retreat in fear.
You’ll just go down the sewer drain
Like dogshit in a heavy rain.
Meanwhile, take a brush-up course
In writing quatrains with more force.
The ones you’ve penned are lame and clunky,
And worthy of a spaced-out junkie.
But let me take it up a notch —
Is your problem weed, or scotch,
Or crystal meth, or heroin,
Some other pharmaceutic sin?
Or do you have a dose of clap,
And has this caused your mind to snap?
In any case, don’t pick a fight
When you’re drunk, or daft, or tight.
Got that, mate? And now you oughta
Soak your head in ice-cold water.
He festers now, cankered with hate,
Certain that it’s the only way
For nations to secure a fate
Where only Tories have a say
Involving feathers they have tarred
And loads of mud they love to sling
All over freedoms blooming yard
Lately plucked by their debauched king,
Yet somehow his old fashioned verse
Will salvage civilization
From some fairy socialist curse
Most folks call cooperation
Oh, and how will I quell a yawn
When next he shouts “get off my lawn!”
Putting Spicer Through The Ricer
Greg, you want to have a flyting?
I’m not sure your skill in writing
Is up to the requirements.
First off, pal, you lack all sense
Of what makes for proper scanning —
What’s your meter? Where’s your planning?
The stresses in your weak effusion
Are models of bizarre confusion.
Line 8, 10, and 11 are
Botched disasters, but by far
Your worst fault is you can’t compose
A verse that won’t make readers doze.
“Tetra-” means a four-beat meter.
Your text runs like an old egg beater
Whose worn-out gears and ill-set rotor
Grate just like a half-dead motor.
As for content, how you snivel
And spout the same old liberal drivel!
“Freedom’s blooming yard”? What’s that?
The cesspool where Obama sat?
“Cooperation”? Oh yeah… laws
That pave the path for leftist claws.
You’re just another liberal drone
In the Northwest Twilight Zone.
You’re welcome on my lawn, you twit —
That’s where stray cats come to shit.
The zealot speaks with half a wit
So tragically incomplete
Having been congenitally split
With the other half in his seat
Where constipation forms a bond
His bitter heart cannot undo
And then in time he gets quite fond
Of skipping to his angry loo
To strain until his face turns red
In fearsome contemplation
Of what someone may say instead
Of his prideful indignation
Which sounds a lot just like, of course,
The beating of his long dead horse.
Well said this misanthrope needs challenged
Hey, Bloggs — you’re a Brit, aren’t you? I hope you’re as overjoyed as we here in the States are about the coming of Boris Johnson to the position of Prime Minister!
Finally the anti-Brexit lefties will get their arses kicked. Hooray! I hope you’ll have a pint at your local pub to celebrate! Cheerio, mate!
Sorry, Mr. Bloggs, but Evan plucks the thorns that sting too much.
Alas, Poor Greg, I Knew Him Well…
Ah, poor Greg, you’re sinking fast;
This one’s worse than what came last.
Fourteen lines of mindless pap,
Unpunctuated obscure crap?
Is that the best that you can do?
A run-on sentence, all askew,
With no clear subject or a verb?
Perhaps you ought to stop and curb
Your anger, till you learn to write.
Don’t try to keep this up all night.
I’ll clean your clock, I’ll leave you flat,
I’ll pound you till your brains go splat.
Today I’m filled with joyous heat,
Since Boris J’s in Downing Street!
I can lick the whole damned world!
Dopes like you will soon be hurled
Down into Gehenna’s deeps
With all the other left-wing creeps..
Is Socialism Cooperation?
Is socialism cooperation
When you’re hit with high taxation
With no sight of its cessation,
Just gradual morale degradation?
These two words resist conflation,
But have produced conflagration
In histories of many a nation
To the devil’s great elation.
Let’s right that wrong on this occasion
And fix this truly false equation:
Good will makes true cooperation
And Truth reverses our damnation.
On the same topic, this is a great piece debunking the socialist hysteria by a very intelligent New Zealander:
No Bernie, the Police and Fire Departments Are Not Socialism
https://www.theepochtimes.com/no-bernie-the-police-and-fire-departments-are-not-socialism_2983989.html
Taxes pay for the infrastructure that capitalists all need. Paid for by generations of working people’s tax returns. It allows the capitalist to move his goods on roads, and deals with his sewage. It facilitates the internet built on the public telephone network, and water from the framework of a public utility.
The New Deal saved capitalism from sinking by creating public works like the Hoover Dam, and Blue Ridge Mountain highway that still serves the people and capitalist today. What’s wrong with taxes Evan? State action is the bedrock of the American dream. (Nightmare under Trump)
The issue is “high taxation,” as clearly indicated in the poem. The article I posted clearly explains that taxes are needed and government has a role to play in any ordinary civilization, but taxes have skyrocketed since 1900 and what those taxes are used for is key. Giving the government larger and larger amounts of our money and asking it to think for us and decide who gets the free stuff is not a good model.
Also “Joe Bloggs,” do not post on the Society’s website under Joe Bloggs anymore. We specifically indicated that pseudonyms are discouraged. Use your real whole name.
A singing bird is rapturous.
A stinking turd is crapturous.
What evil spell besets the heart
that cannot tell the two apart?
I don’t think that there is victory to be had in flyting; only the flushing of two eminently considerable talents irretrievably down the toilet.
I didn’t start this catfight, Gregory Spicer did. And now you want to step in and play an oleaginous Jorge Bergoglio?
Of course you started it – “Ethopathology” is nothing more than a relentless and gratuitous provocation, designed for you to publicly humiliate whoever responds to it.
It isn’t poetry by your own standards – there is nothing beautiful about “Ethopathology”.
Those who support you in this are doing you no favors. It’s an incredibly ugly road that they’re encouraging you to stay on and no good can come from it.
Give it a rest Joe, for everyone’ sake; for your own most importantly.
I’m not the only one to see
Professor Salami’s gaping traits
Such as absent humility
And all the hate that he conflates.
And so few will point it out,
It seems that only I will dare,
To question his Swiss clockwork shout
So like a heartless robot’s blare.
He knows that it will hypnotize,
As polished rhetoric will do,
Which is his way to aggrandize
The latest conservative spew…
To be expected from a fop
Who crowns himself the Poetry cop.
Good Lord!
Methinks he doth protest too much
As verbal straws he tries to clutch.
It seems a grasp of rhyme and meter
Has ne’er concerned the little bleater.
Professor Salemi – Job should envy your patience.
Thanks, Jan Darling. I’m glad someone besides myself is willing to state publicly that Gregory Spicer is completely incompetent as a poet.
But then again, he’s never bothered to hide the fact that the only reason he comes here is to express his anger at conservative viewpoints. His interest in poetry is nil.
Nothing hones like a sonnet,
Heaven’s paragraph of perfection,
With it’s golden stamp upon it
Invincible to abjection!
But there are those who would deride
This magnificent gift of old.
Their fluid wit seems to have dried
And been replaced by Tory mold.
That mold is the strongest poison
To inculcate the common mind,
Against the universal foison
Universally perceived as kind,
And the citizens will know it
When they’ve been lied to by a poet!
To those who are so offended —
Doesn’t anyone care about poetry anymore? Is politics all there is?
A poem can be a vehicle for a plethora of praise or complaint. When writing anything, one might laud or attack issues, attitudes, situations, personality types. Cherry on top is the point of view l
Certainly all of us have points of view, as diverse as we are. Assuming the technical stuff is up to snuff, put that with your honest opinion and you will, most times, make a competent poem.
But we are not talking about mere competence. The real topic of this discussion goes way beyond that. I believe we are discussing scope; something very few would-be poets consider. I notice most poems today have a very flat affect — flat and as interesting as a tv screen. Literalness has taken the place of depth of sensitivity, and of scope. What is scope? One way of describing it would be the larger view you get from standing on a mountain top That’s scope — bigger than mere feeling, more precise and predictive.
Salemi writes with scope in his pen. His mind is far-reaching and sharp as a razor. No wonder silly or obsessed people don’t like what he has to say ! Theirs is a small and narrow view.
I am not saying Joe Salemi is perfect, and never makes mistakes. He just happens to be a better poet than most, worldwide. You can get mad at him, but you better be prepared to present a good argument, or admit you are wrong. While you are stewing, he is busy not only striving for, but achieving still more scope !
Grey, Poe, Clough and more – all those he has written about so compellingly at Expansive Poetry Online had it. The late Leo Yankevich had it. Where it comes from, I don’t know. Scope may be a form of God- given prescience, augmented by careful observation, intense study, and good sense.
In any case, it is not something to be trashed and denigrated. It should be greatly respected. Get real, people ! It is not seemly to sneer at what you do not understand.
Oh my dear Sally Cook,
I am not here to be offended, but to offend.
Thusly…more then a mouthwash!
No god escapes the well wrought scope of man
Such as micro, stetho, and peri.
We claim their domain with an increased span
When sensation and equipment marry.
Olympic lightning is tamed with a rod,
Like herds of sheep with the tap of a stick,
And now even the tide comes in a pod!
Poseidon himself never knew such a trick!
Ever and anon men are ascending
Past thunderclap mountains scraping the sky
And though mortality could use some mending
We love to aid our unaided eye.
In like fashion the poor will soon be rich
Since scope scratches curiosities itch!
Additionally, if you desire to be offended, just snatch a ticket and get in line.
Perhaps you are the one that needs to get real.
“Oh boo hoo!” cried the metrist
When his algorithm ran
Every time that he got pissed
At the brotherhood of man
Who love to play with words all day,
When fashioning their nation state,
Yet nowhere does it strictly say
That syllables must count to eight.
If that were true we’d still have kings
And all of their despotic tricks
But we declared much better things
In seventeen seventy six!
And on that note I bid adieu
To fetch an ice cold…liberal brew!
A Lesson for Greg Spicer on the American Revolution
Way back then, in ’76,
We dumped the bureaucratic pricks
For whom Greg Spicer beats the drum:
The stuck-up Parliamentary scum,
The tax-men and oppressive laws,
The flapping ministerial jaws,
Our “betters” who decided then
That colonists were lesser men,
And that we had to watch our manners
And bow our necks to British banners.
We kicked their fat elitist asses
And gave Americans free passes
To live and act just as we like.
So Spicer, take a lengthy hike —
Back then you’d have argued how
Taxation was a sacred cow,
And that loyalty requires
Deference to our occupiers.
You’d have been a gutless Tory
With no share in our nation’s glory.
We seized our cherished, holy rights,
And whipped the Brits in savage fights.
And right now, that’s what Trump is doing:
He’s giving leftist creeps a screwing.
All your bleats just mask your failure,
So drag you ass to Venezuela.
Go on, have your “liberal brew” —
And may it make you choke and spew.
Give it up, Greg — you’re totally outclassed in this flyting.
Dear Mr. Bloggs of Bloggosphere,
Fly off to anywhere but here,
In company with rantng Spicer,
Who’reasons not, and could be nicer.
To Joe Tessitore —
The name isn’t “ethopathology” — it’s “ethopathy.”
There’s nothing beautiful about my poem? Well, chacun a son gout. But the fact that over thirty-five lengthy sections of it have been published in multiple journals so far, prior to the publication of the entire text, indicates that much of literary world disagrees with you.
If you don’t like my work you don’t have to read it, and you don’t have to comment on it. I make it a point never to comment on yours. But frankly, you simply couldn’t resist sticking your two cents into this debate. That indicates you’re a lot more obsessed with me and my work than I could ever be with yours.
By the way, continue your tiresome habit of shouting “Great! Fabulous! Wonderful! Amazing!” whenever a mediocre amateur poem is posted. That’s sure to make you feel more like Bergoglio.
Thanks for comparing me to the Pope.
Mein Kampf’s been published even more than you have.
And everybody else has been published more than Joe Tessitore has.
You’re right – I never made a dime from a rhyme.
Last word’s yours, Mighty Joe, but one quick question before I go; what happened to you and the Steve Hagerman thing?
I never thought I’d live to see the day when you ran away from a spirited discussion with your tail between your legs.
What kind of Homeric warrior does that?
That Bruce Dale really has it going on, doesn’t he?
I still laugh out loud when I think of his first paragraph; “ … the rantings of the more youthful, if less rational, Mr. MacKenzie … “ indeed!!!
Hasta la vista, Homey!
Joe T.,
I am embarrassed for you, using the “Progressive” name-calling trick. Thought you were better than that.
Who the hell do you think you’re kidding, Tessitore?
I cleaned Hagerman’s clock in that metrical debate. The guy is an electrician, and what he knows about metrics is minimal. Why don’t you go back and read the exchanges for yourself? He never adequately answered a single point that I raised. He just shut up.
As for BDW, I mentioned in my last post at that thread that he was suffering from some sort of mental syndrome. He never came back to discuss the matter. Since I promised James Tweedie that I would cease arguing, I see no need to revisit the issue.
Leo Yankevich taught me NEVER to run from a fight. And you know what Leo would have said about you? You’re just a CHEAP PUNK, who’s now pretending to have religion. Why don’t you tell us about your real history — or are you too ashamed of it?
By the way, I didn’t compare you to the Pope. Bergoglio and the papacy are two Venn diagrams that don’t overlap.
Dear Sally,
What name have I called Salemi that gets even remotely close to the vile things he says about me – “CHEAP PUNK” being but the latest example, in spite of the fact that he finds it necessary to hide behind a dead person to say it?
And yet you have nothing to say to or about him.
You needn’t be embarrassed for me – look to yourself; you’ll find that there’s more than enough work for you there to do.
You think I’m hiding behind a dead man? OK, here’s my reply, in my own personal voice:
Joe Tessitore is a CHEAP PUNK.
Let me add also that your poems suck, your critiques are childish, and you are so envious of my talents that you are ready to wither up and die from grief.
Happy now? Good. Go talk to your spiritual advisor.
I call out bullies when I can
And the obnoxious verse they do
And give no damn if poems scan
When all they give is right wing skew,
Biting like some hyena pack
At war with edification,
Offering, no counter attack
Against the abomination!
It’s time for people to be brave
And sing out against invective
No matter who may be the knave
Offering the rude directive,
For even bards will give abuse
When their meter…steps like a goose!
For Greg Spicer, Incompetent Leftist Pseudo-Poet
Spicer shows his flag at last:
A little left-wing chloroplast
Absorbing sunlight to create
The weeds of mindless New-Age hate.’
A semi-educated slug
Whose half-baked verse deserves a shrug
And nothing more. Just scan his lines;
They read like infantilish whines
Penned by someone in a crib
Still drooling on his mama’s bib.
At this point, Greg is out of luck —
He’s proved himself a total schmuck.
Verses like the ones he’s posted
Are not just cooked — they’re fried and roasted
Like dead horsemeat on a grill.
Greg, you’re just a stupid shill
For Antifa and other thugs.
Change your job — try selling drugs!
Go to Portland or Seattle
And push dope to the brainless cattle
Who now infest your shit-hole state.
Over here, you just don’t rate.
You see, you cannot write a verse
Without it being bad, or worse.
So I’ll just keep on writing pages
While you slip into helpless rages.
By the way, learn how to spell —
Your reputation’s shot to hell
When you make goofy flubs like these,
And try to learn some grammar, please!
Spicer’s illiterate errors:
“more then” (he means “more than”)
“curiosities” (he means “curiosity’s”)
“it’s” (he means “its”)
Mr. Salemi’s loose iambic tetrameters above from “A Gallery of Ethopaths” are better than Mr. Spicer’s and Mr. Salemi’s iambic tetrameters on this strand, partially because, although also filled with invective, they hit harder because of their colourful, “abstract” nature. In action, the iambs of Mr. Spicer and Mr. Salemi are reminiscent of the lively iambs of Dryden, Pope, Johnson, and Byron. Wouldn’t it be nice if they could in time approach the power of any of those remarkable British poets? Although it is highly unlikely, there is no reason why outside of Britain, we could not have a comp’rable Dryden, Pope, Samuel Johnson, or George Gordon in India, in Canada, in South Africa, in Australia, etc. After all, both Mr. Spicer’s and Mr. Salemi’s iambics are passionate. They have the energy and the material; it is the refinement that is missing. But as for approaching the power of Juvenal; because we are not syllable counters, I highly doubt that will happen in the English-speaking world anytime soon, despite the many exciting things happening in English poetry around the Globe.
But that is not the main reason I have come to this strand. I have come here to attend to a remark of Mr. Salemi’s. As such, I wonder, indeed, if it is Mr. Salemi who is “suffering from some sort of mental syndrome”. I certainly am not. And to hear such rubbish from a literary critic is laughable. If Mr. Salemi is interested in the matters of which he speaks about in reference to BDW, which I doubt, he can read a response on the “Pablo Neruda/Joseph Stalin” strand, which is why he would have missed it. It was written there not to detract from Mr. Hagerman’s post any further.
Dear Mr. Acrewe,
I have been wondering the same thing.
The fact that he believes that there is a conspiracy of West Coast poets out to get him is my most recent cause for concern.
The fact that he believes that the Pope is not the Pope, and that anyone who believes that the Pope IS the Pope is crazy, is yet another cause for concern.
His seeming inability to control his anger – on a poetry page, of all places – is also disturbing.
And finally, I think he might believe that he’s fighting a Crusade, though I’m not really sure about this one – that might be MacKenzie.
You think that I can’t control my anger? Is the pot calling the kettle black? Every word you have posted in this catfight indicates your rage and you malice towards me.
Is there some conspiracy of Pacific Northwest left-liberals out there? I don’t know. I simply pointed out the unusual cluster of persons from that area involved in this dispute. Draw your own conclusions.
As for Bergoglio being an antipope, there are PLENTY of devout Roman Catholics besides myself who think that the man is a fraud and a heretic. You were so clueless that you didn’t even know that there was an argument over this issue — not until I told you in a past posting here. That indicates your basic Novus Ordo stupidity.
I’m not fighting any crusade. I’m just a poet who is trying to restore sanity to the world of formal poetry, in circumstances that are deeply inimical to it. Part of the problem is people like you and Spicer, who are utterly incompetent in writing verse, and who don’t want to learn how to improve.
Thinking it humanity’s box
Where all of our thinking is done
Salami’s brain contains the pox
That has outside box thought on the run
Proving that all his college years
Have given him no better verse
Then that of self trained sonneteers
He tries to put down with his curse
Which is a block of graceless rap
Full of teenage caveman thought
Exactly like the ghetto crap
Routinely getting rappers shot
So I’ll forego his high tuition
For Mr. Acrewe’s recognition.
Sigh. Once again, despite previous correction by me, Greg Spicer writes “then” when he means “than” (see line 7 of the above).
There’s also no punctuation at all. This guy can be called literate only with the widest latitude of charity. If he wants to forego my teaching (not “tuition”) that’s fine, but he needs re-education from somebody.
That’s like asking for quotation marks when I’m showing you my middle finger. Go check yourself into the psyche ward, Poindexter.
It looks like I’m getting under Spicer’s skin. Since his substandard doggerel won’t work in this fight, he sinks into pure abuse.
I think I’ve done enough to show everyone what you really are. But thanks anyway for the free tetrameter lessons…chump!
Too bad you didn’t learn anything about writing poetry.