Because we all want to write more poems.
Copycat
I can’t help
noticing that
many of my poems
slavishly imitate
Charles Bukowski’s
only without the
fighting
fucking
boozing
Beethoven
or any
of the other
interesting parts
- Michael Mayhew's Shared Poems
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Comments
Michael Mayhew
February 4, 2013
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I wrote this a while back
...but didn't post it, because I was feeling like "process poems" - me writing about me writing - were a bit too easy, circular, and unimaginative, and I also wondered if the strong language might offend some here.
But then Neil's "sketch" and "Blue Tavern" poems reminded me of Bukowski, which reminded me of this, so I thought "what the heck, why not?"
I'd actually tried "whoring" as a replacement for the F word, but that killed the alliteration, and sounded less like Bukowski. In for a penny, in for a pound.
Neil McKay
February 4, 2013
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The F word seems well placed
The F word seems well placed there. I'm too old to be offended but it brings up what is always an interesting topic for me. Swearing in poetry and stand up comedy and even in conversation. I don't do it because I don't think it comes off all that well from me. I don't have any moral opposition to it but I do feel that it tends to bring down the intellectual and literary level of the writing because it's sort of a cheat. Bukowski and Ginsberg being notable exceptions.
I remember not too long ago, a poet in a coffeehouse could always get a vociferous response by embedding a "Fuck George Bush" somewhere into their poem. I always thought, "man, you can do better than that." And now those poems are dated and not worth reading or repeating.
Michael Mayhew
February 6, 2013
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more on the F word...
I agree that the primary problem with "fuck" is that it's become boring language. What was once either shocking because it was seldom heard in popular culture, or powerful because it revealed a kind of truth of the streets that middle class America wanted to pretend didn't exist, is now just so much verbal ketchup slathered over everything.
I once edited a movie where one of the male actors would insert two or three f-bombs into every line because he felt it made him seem raw and real and masculine. In reality it was just sort of a joke.
My personal rule is that I try to only use the word for what it actually means - sexual intercourse. That's the one area where it still has a tiny bit of power. A friend once told me about a scene in a movie where a man and a woman are at a noisy party, or maybe a bar, and she leans in close to his ear and whispers "let's fuck." That, in my opinion, still has something to it.
Of course now I have a little girl in the house who is EXTREMELY sensitive to swearing of any kind, so I hardly swear at all. And when I do, I have to put fifty cents in the change jar. At least until she goes to bed, and then it feels like D and I swear even more, just to let it out!
Neil McKay
February 8, 2013
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Verbal ketchup is an
Verbal ketchup is an excellent metaphor.
I don't think I would ever use that word as a term for intercourse unless I was trying to be crude. For my tastes, it's too violent, too angry, too percussive. I wasn't raised in a home where it was casually used so it was street language. And always seemed degrading to women and to the act of sex. "words with a K in them" as Walter Matthau said in The Sunshine Boys, are funny.
But that's just to say that I would only use it for deliberate effect either comic or angry. In describing the act, I generally say as little as possible.
Clayton Medeiros
February 6, 2013
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Agreement
I agree with Neil on this issue and that your use here is fine. Expletives of all kinds have been beaten into meaninglessness by hip hop, performance poetry, films. etc. They hold no surprise or outrage. You can tell when a TV sitcom is headed or irrelevance and limited entertainment value, they turn to sexual innuendo (or not so innuendo) and ten year old bathroom humor.
On sounding like Bukowski, there is nothing wrong with that if it is heartfelt. Theft in the arts is inevitable and ok. Imitation is a form of flattery. I like Jonathan Talbot's idea that we are at the head of a long line of artists and writers and we should feel free to tap into and expand on their work.