Sonnet Board banter - Parody, Pastiche and Blomquistians.

"PLEASE ACCEPT MY RESIGNATION. I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER".

The popularity of Groucho' Marx' much quoted quip probably rests on the fact that it is equal appealing to the self absorbed, the socially awkward and the plain curmudgeonly. Given that these groups contain most of humanity, then I suppose Groucho's sentiments do offer a crumb of comfort to the grumbling majority doomed to sit on the sidelines watching, with a mixture of disdain and envy, the antics of the cheerleading minority falling over each other to join - The Belfry golf club, The Cheltenham Rotary do-gooders and mutual benefit society, The Crewe Alexander Supporters Club, The Spennymoor Allotment and Leek Growers Association, The Camden Women's Writing Group or The East Grinstead W.I. My personal track record of club membership is lamentable. I have proved over the last half century equally unable to belonging to: The Cub Scouts, Young Presbyterians, St James' Junior Choir, The Northumbertand Youth Theatre, Manchester University Union Anarchists Society, Greenpeace, The Cycle Touring Club, The Labour Party, The Institute For Learning, Facebook - I could go on...  I have concluded that the my outstanding success at failing to belong stems from a personality type best described as a socio-phobic curmudgeon with strong leanings towards self absorption. It is no wonder that I feel compelled to write poetry. what else quite gives you the same opportunity for solitude, and combines the chance to foist the ramblings of ego mania with arch, miserable whingeing on your unsuspecting and, it has to be admitted, largely indifferent, fellow chimpanzees.

So, all that being said, it should come as little surprise that the only group that I have managed to stay involved with for any length of time is Sonnet Central's poetry web-board - The Sonnet Board.

As Mike Alexander wrote on the board's tenth anniversary:

 In the beginning, there was a site, Sonnet Central, & on this site there were sonnets, & some of these sonnets were submitted through the site's guest book, & along with these sonnets, there were comments, & among these comments, there were some that said, "hey, wouldn't it be nice if we had a workshop section to this site..."   & so, ten years ago, as of the end of this month, this workshop site was born, if, er, birth is what commences a message board. We were the first new sonnet page of the century. Or some such accident of the calendar. The point is that we've been here for you & you've been here for us, & sonnets have been written & read & written upon.

To the committed 'non-belonger' the Sonnet Board holds particular attractions. Firstly, it serves no higher social purpose whatsoever, other than corralling the similarly obsessed and bewildered so they don't annoy normal people. Secondly, it has hardly any rules - just comment more on other people's posts more than seeking feedback on your own, and no 'ad hominem' attacks. Other than that, be polite. And so, without too much ado, this random band of global sonneteers hung out in cyberspace and had a rare old good time for six or seven years. A lot of high quality poetry was shared, people grew and developed as writers from shy amateurs into confident poets getting published on-line and in print. Best of all, it was serious fun. So this post celebrates the less serious side of on-line writing workshops, starting first with the gentle art of parody.

1. Parodies

The Sonnet Board's parody string ran for almost two years; here are a few of my favourites:

This alternative take on Masefield was posted by Margaret Menamin. Sadly she died in 2009, a witty and clever writer of light verse who, like others graced with such a talent often get overlooked in terms of the technical accomplishment and the fine ear for language required to write humorous poetry. 

SPREE FEVERI must go down to the pub again, to McLafferty's Bar and Grill,
And all I ask is a cosy booth where I can swallow me fill
And some stout port that's the outport where I would aye be
anchored
And a long arm and a strong arm and a twelve-inch tankard.

I must go down to the pub again for a rollicking all-night nip
And all I ask is a tall glass that bubbles over the lip
And a scarred bench that's a hard bench that will keep me
bum from sinking
And a large loo with a deep pit as I go on drinking.

I must go down to the pub again, to the bottles that shine
like jools
And all I ask is to keep me legs so I won't fall off the stools
And a long chug from a deep jug that will help me drown me
sorrow
And a wee shot of the same rot to wake me tomorrow.

In his day job Rick Mullin works as chief editor for the trade journal of the American chemical industry. He used this situation as the basis of an unlikely and somewhat surreal parody of Ginsberg's much celebrated 'Howl'.

Hurl

(An indictment of the day job with apologies to Alan Ginsberg in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Gs premier reading in which certain names have been changed)

I

I saw the best minds of the international chemical business
press junket slumped in Cincinnati auditoria
jacked up by so-called Enlightenment principles
underpaid through lunches at Remi
with real flacks
Who pleaded with colleagues to get their own damn magazine
Who sulked amidst the sociopathology of chemists
Who nodded off in inoperable busses at the horse circus in Marseilles
with splitting headaches from regional wines and the nonstop
bitter gibberish of American Petroleum scribes where ancient
editors-in-chiefs refuse to travel without wives and
the ghost of Stenson hovers between the dayglo-daubed pedestals
of the phony Bourse
Who accused Lois Lane of being an insufferably precocious squirrel
Who were pestered by gnats
Who must admit they had shockingly little comprehension of
a social milieu in which golf balls are anything but tapped
into the skulls of clowns or putted through
windmills
Who cringed in the presence of Fatman contemplating Texas in Milan
Who argued against Darwin on matters of the President
in the no-win gloaming of Crambex yacht parties
Who do you have to fuck for a semicolon?


II

Which angular fixture of midweek symposia likes
Dr. Rudolphs perspective?
Mihalik!
Hamilton Madison John-Jay Scion of Lanza!
Mihalik who does that swim thing down Basels Rhine
Missed deadlines, buried leads,
forgotten passports
Mihalik Mihalikk Mihalik!
Mihalik with dibs on L. tattum
Mihalik huddled with Helga
Mihaliks voice mail, Mihaliks business card, Mihaliks power point
Mihalik Mit freundlichen Grssen!


III

I am with you at Interplex in din of the nonstop pinball of Jones
I am with you at Interplex when the canned trumpet is not enough
I am with you at Interplex where Big Chief Vergussa
threw cups and beads
I am with you at Interplex as you watch your boss shop
for Persian rugs with beignet dust on your stupid sports coat
I am with you at Interplex when she drags you to strip clubs
with the bizarre woman
from telemarketing
I am with you at Interplex throughout the ritual dinner at Antoines
I am with you at Interplex for the unholy transubstantiation
of exclusive synthesis
I am with you at Interplex under the billboard of Carrot Top Sienfeld
Elton Celine and
Pips
I am with you at Interplex where your scratchpad buys you
a homeland security rap under the polyethylene premise of Venice
I am with you at Interplex where you regale salesmen over beer
I am with you at Interplex where the Elvis impersonators
now charge for Polaroids and
you actually pay
I am with you at Interplex when your jaw drops on word
of the French lovelys defective parachute
I am with you at Interplex, where it is always the same story.

(Dec. '05)

Dave McClure regularly posted funny and clever parodies. This is a joyous piece of literary vandalism in which Hiawatha swops buckskin for spandex.

Underneath the shiny spandex
Clinging tightly as a limpet
Are the legs of Hiawatha,
Lower limbs of Hiawatha
Gaily decked in glossy spandex
Like the butt of Linford Christie,
Muscled butt of hero Linford
Sparkling fount of many medals
Gleaming golden like the spandex
Gold and silver like the spandex
On the legs of Hiawatha.

But the legs of Hiawatha
All concealed in glossy spandex
Are the reason for the leggings,
For the garish glistening fabric
Glowing even like the sunlight.

For the legs of Hiawatha
Never seen by any other
Are the colour of the spandex -
Lurid green and incandescent
Are the legs of Hiawatha.
Many moons and fiery comets
Grace the legs of Hiawatha
All concealed in shining spandex.

And the butt of Hiawatha,
Not at all like Linford Christie's,
- Deep mahogany is Linford's
Though I only speak from hearsay -
But the butt of Hiawatha
Is an opalescent yellow
Like the moon at any harvest.

Daughter of the moon, Nakomis
Colour blind and understanding
Loves the legs of Hiawatha,
But she watches television
For a glimpse of Linford Christie,
Murmuring "I love athletics".     

My only foray into these shenanigans was a sonnet on 'artful death' written in the style of Keats.

Last Orders
For Margaret Griffiths

Poets prefer a Keatsian demise,
to cease at darkling midnight with no pain.
Soft-kissed by murm'ring Lethe's laudanum grain,
beneath a steadfast star, a Genius dies,
his garret skylight framing the moonrise.
On cue, a distant nightingale's refrain
o'erwhelms the fading glades of his dulled brain.
When in the arms of easeful death he lies,
it's then that his companions at first light
shall find him in a sweet, beatific pose,
for tabloid deaths belong to those who write
bonk buster novels packed with purple prose;
but poets, who on water write their name
achieve, through artful death, posthumous fame.

2. Light Verse

Like all comedy, writing funny poetry probably requires more technical skill and panache than turning out heartfelt serious work. My parody, 'Last Orders' was written in response to a poem of the same name by the greatest of all 'internet poets' Margaret Griffiths, whose talents, hidden behind  the handle 'Grasshopper' illuminated many a poetry board over the years.

Last Orders

I'm ordering a Hollywood decline.
The symptoms are ideal: not being sick,
the application of a pale lip slick,
some floaty scarves, a duty to recline
against silk pillows, being brave, while friends
and family troop in with gifts and flowers
and wet-eyed memories of rosy hours.
Stock shots of surf and seabirds when it ends.

Spare me the vulgar things, like diarrhoea,
depression, pain; they're for the hoi polloi.
A dying will seems such a good idea.
I want a starry close, so please employ
soft-focus, and cue choirs' Ave Maria,
then fade me out with Ludwig's Ode to Joy.

It is difficult now to read this darkly funny poem without a feeling somewhat queasy. Margaret's decline was a far cry from being a Hollywood moment; her tragic death in 2009 shocked the internet writing community who came together to collect as many of her poems as possible. Among the 300 or so recovered quite a few revealed the extent of her talent for writing pastiche and light verse. As I wrote  in my memorial essay about her:

Her ability to write convincingly, apparently at will, in a bewildering variety of voices made Margaret wickedly good at parody. When Sonnet Central became even more besieged than usual by ego maniacal poets with a penchant for posting truly terrible ‘traditional sonnets’ in the style of Shakespeare or Keats, Margaret parodied their efforts as follows:

Casting Pearls

As Shakespeare wrote, forsooth, so shall I write.
His hem up lifting, I'll his robe assume,
My verse infuse with his poetic might,
And mind me not that Moderns fret and fume.
Like Circe's pets, they scorn my polish'd feats
And grunt at each inversion and elision;
Such Swine will call Time-temper'd touches cheats,
And claim Tradition's sweets may need revision.
These Creatures value not my antique jew'ls:
"'Tis not contemporary speech." they cry.
I write for the Elite, not vulgar Fools;
The more I Shakespeare ape, the more Bard, I.
Enough! I have great Sonnets to compose.
Bring me my quill, my doublet and my hose.

Who else but Maz could have come up with ‘The more I Shakespeare ape, the more Bard, I.’?

I wonder if it was this sonnet of Margaret's which got me thinking about what might have happened if internet poetry boards had existed in the past. How would 'the greats' have fared. My sonnet, First Post contends, at least so far as Shelley is concerned, that he might not have fared quite as well as you would surmise.

First Post

Welcome ‘persibish’ to Sonnet Central.
Your handle seems familiar, have we met?
Although there’s much to praise here, the octet
employs a strange rhyme scheme that’s detrimental
to your poem’s success. Best avoid slant rhyme -
like stone and frown within a formal verse,
inversions in line 6 just make things worse,
(though ‘sneer of cold command’ is quite sublime).
Who's Ozymandias - some obscure pharaoh?
You have prodigious talent, but lack craft –
the simple diction found in the sestet,
could be used throughout, IMVHO.
The more you post the better you will get.
Good work. Well done. Please post your second draft.
Margaret, from time to time, would turn her wry, acerbic wit upon herself. In this sonnet she gently pokes fun at the hidden intentions behind her own preparations for a dinner party, observed sardonically by her pet cat.

Ding Dong Bell

Great Bast, today she pulled out all the stops,
all faff and fussle to impress her friends;
the bedrooms were a whirl of cloths and mops,
much bathroom bleach sploshed all around the bends,
great waspiness of Hoover on the stairs.
She wore a gypsy scarf to dust and clean,
to brush the suite and tut at velcroed hairs.
I split, aloof, -upheaval's not my scene.
She's donned a dress, a closet lecher's dream,
the pristine kitchen's pregnant with fine food,
the startled rooms and furniture all gleam.
Ding Dong. Her guests arrive in festive mood.
Ah, that's my cue to squat with blissful hiss
and souse the Persian rug with pungent piss.

I have never excelled to this extent as a writer of light verse, but I have enjoy the odd times I've been tempted to have a go. Maybe the most successful piece I ever managed recorded some  thoughts on the development of the nude in Western Art; it's a kind of light companion to my Olympia sonnets.

Nude Descending a Staircase - Marcel Duchamp

For Mike Alexander

The obvious question no one ever asks
is why descend a staircase in the nude?
Giorgione’s Sleeping Venus calmly basks
within a green Arcadian dream imbued
with golden light; while Sandro’s Aphrodite
drifts shore-wards in a coy pubescent pose.
A classicist myself, I shun the sprightly
preferring nudes depicted in repose;
although an antelope in flight looks sleek,
not so the human. In truth, athletic
heroes ‘a la Greque’ who proudly streak
towards the winning post, seem unaesthetic -
We note a slight anatomical failure:
God-like physique but boyish genitalia.



3. Blomqistian Bombshells

Sonnet Central, the internet based repository for sonnets developed in the late 1990's, was the brainchild of a young American, Eric Blomquist. It is fitting, therefore, that the only new form of sonnet spawned by the board should be named after the founder. The 'Blomquistian' is basically a joke of the 'A man walks into a bar' type re-written in sonnet form with the final couplet containing the punch line. It would appear groaningly bad jokes are regarded as the most fertile source material as evidenced by this attempt by Kathleen Earsman.

Equestrian Blomquestrian.

A woman strode into the clubhouse bar
and stood there solidly, her legs apart,
her jodhpurs sticking out a bit too far.
She loitered by the cafe al la carte
deciding that she'd stay to have a bite
(when she'd dispatched a foaming stout or two)
because she had a way to ride that night.
She shifted restlessly from shoe to shoe.
But no-one came to offer her a drink;
the staff were watching footy out the back
to rowdy cheers and she began to think
they'd never show. At last came barman Jack;
"You waiting to be served?" she heard him say.
"Oh no," she said, "I always stand this way."

Some participants developed a real flair for these. David Anthony is a particular favourite of mine, here are two typical examples.

Who's Afraid?

My sister takes reception class and prides
herself on spinning yarns: at five years old
the kids when entertained are good as gold,
and learn a lot from fairy tales besides.
They loved the story of the pig who tries
to build a house of straw-the one the bold
and wicked wolf will wreck-a tale best told
in detail, showing all it signifies.
"The pig," she told them, "found a turnip bed
made out of straw and asked if he could dig
a little up. Guess what the farmer said?"
"I know," cried Jude, one hand above her head,
and standing (since she wasn't very big):
"Well, bugger me-here comes a talking pig!"

To Die For

Aunt Bessie has a talent: when she bakes
the flavour drives you wild. My cousins say
their father Tim, a regular gourmet,
married her for love-of chocolate cakes.
Poor Uncle Tim was feeling far from well-
in fact, was on his deathbed-when the scent
of baking half-revived him. Off he went
to find the source of that seductive smell.
Each step was painful as he tottered down
to taste the treat. At last his feeble hand
grasped hungrily. Bess slapped it sharply and
dismissed him with an irritated frown:
"Clear off to bed and put the buns back too!
I made them for the funeral, not for you."

As with most good jokes the Blomquistians contain a good clutch of politically incorrect topics, this next one conforming to the 'Woman Driver' genre. Difficult to wade-in with complaints when it was contributed by a woman - Susan Eckenrode.

Running Out of Gas

She hurries off, neglects to check the gauge,
then notices the needle nudging E.
Already past the red light warning stage,
her car is running on its fumes. Though she
will usually respect the local limit,
it worries her to think of getting stuck
beside the road alone. Her fear's so grim it
blinds her to the cruiser---drat the luck,
the Texaco's just three miles down the road.
"Hey, what's the hurry miss?" the cop inquires.
Her pounding heart feels like it might explode,
as Officer Delany checks for priors.
She volunteers, "I know I drove too fast
but only 'cause I'm running out of gas."

Peter Richards posted this example of an Irish joke recycled in sonnet form:

A man came to the pub once with a fish
and Mick and Pat, with eyes as big as plates,
said: "Come on, John, you'll have to tell your mates,
how could we catch one like that, if we wished?"
"Ah, to be sure," the lucky fisher smiled,
"From off the bridge, the brother holds me feet
until I yell: 'All right, I've got one, Pete!'
and up he pulls me. It's work for a child."
So Michael leans down from the precipice
and Pat hangs on to Mick. His arms are sore,
he's thinking he can't hold on any more,
when: "Pull up, Patrick, I can't handle this!"
"But, you've no fish, we'll have to try again."
"There was no fish, that was a bloody train."

Finally, an attempt by me to turn into a sonnet what was widely claimed to be the world's funniest joke.

Just Making Sure

Since high school, Jim and Jake had been best friends.
Come Fridays, Jake’s black Chevy Avalanche
sprouts lethal weaponry; most Spring week-ends
they hunt, then get blind drunk up at Jim’s ranch.

Their wives agree, ‘they’re just big kids, Tom Sawyer
wannabees who can’t grow-up.” Jake - franchise
king of Down East Laundromats, Jim - lawyer
side-kick, both dream of backwoods and big skies.

Bushwhacking through remotest Aroostook,
Jim drops-down motionless. With growing dread
Jake phones for help. He croaks, “I don’t dare look.”
“Don’t panic sir, first just make sure he’s dead.”

The Ranger waits, he hears a single shot,
then Jake retorts,”Ok, that’s done, now what?”