National Poetry Month: Humor and the unexpected turn

"Well, that's the trick: the sudden unexpectedness inside the over-known."
--- Heather McHugh

What type of mood does the word "poetry" evoke for you? Do you associate poetry with the profound and weighty? The concerns of the soul and the seriously sacred? 

I rarely look to poetry for a laugh and I wonder why, when there are many brilliant moments of humor to be found there. In celebration of National Poetry month, here are ten or so humorous poems from Roald Dahl, Billy Collins, Carol Ann Duffy, and others.

I'm joined by poet and songwriter Rags Rosenberg, a longtime friend of Myth Matters who adds a few of his thoughts and poems to the mix. Thank you Rags!

I hope you enjoy the episode and please share your favorite poems of the moment with me! 

Thanks for listening.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Myth Matters an exploration at the intersection of mythology, creativity and consciousness. I’m your host Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide beautiful crazy world of ours, I’m glad that you decided to join me here today.

April is national poetry month here in the United States. Yay! I've participated in this celebration a number of years on the podcast. If you scroll back through April episodes of past seasons of Myth Matters, or go even further back to my earlier podcast, Myth in the Mojave, you will find a variety of approaches to the holiday. 

I’ve talked about the power of poetry to open our imagination and enhance empathy. About the intimate relationship between poetry and mythology. Many, perhaps the majority, of our earliest known recorded myths were originally long poems. "Myth" from Greek mythos, is generally agreed to be pre-Greek, of unknown origin--a word that the Greeks came across and incorporated into their language.  "Mythos" meant speech, thought, conversation, story-- any of these forms delivered by word of mouth. "Poem" from the Greek poema, comes from the root poein, to make or complete. The ancient Greeks often referred to the art of poet and playwright as "mythopoesis," the making of myth. 

I’ve interviewed a number of poets, Cynthia Anderson, Dian Sousa, and Greg Gilbert, for example, and talked about the subjects these poets entertained through this form. We also explored the power of poetry as a way of recording, discovering, and evolving the self. 

Poetry-- writing poetry-- is an excellent way to investigate your unique perspective on the world. And reading the poems of others is a valuable way portal into the world of the poet and also your own. Sometimes we need to borrow the words of others to articulate our truth. When I tell a story on this podcast I often suggest that you pay attention to the moments or details that capture your attention because these are clues, clues to who you are in relation to the story at the moment. This same technique is very useful and approaching poetry.

There are also a few episodes of poems, including episodes of poets and Myth Matters listeners reading poetry they love. Reading poetry is also a valuable way to connect with the breath, voice, and body. Mythology has often been poetry, and myth and poetry have often been song. 

In reflecting on past April poetry months, I realized that I have not talked about humor in poetry. I can certainly use a laugh or a smile these days and perhaps you can too. So, today I have 10 poems to share with you that delight me in one way or another and I've invited my long-time friend Rags Rosenberg to help me out with this today. Rags is a performing songwriter and poet and I’ve interviewed him several times for April podcasts. I grateful that he could join me today.

Hello Rags, I’m so excited that you agreed to join me for this episode today How are you?

Rags Roseneberg: I'm just fine. I'm really glad you invited me to do this here at the hotel where I, where I currently work in Carmel, we're gonna have our third annual National Poetry Month celebration, right right here at the hotel, you know, where I invite a few poets and we talk about why poetry can be important in your life. So I'm doing very well everything is good here. Thanks for asking.

Catherine: Good, good, good. Well, I know that you and I have talked about-- and also of course you are a poet---so, you know that when we talk about poetry, we talked about the love of language, the satisfaction in finding exactly the right word, our enjoyment in the nuances of meaning, creativity in all the figurative forms, the world expanding power of metaphor, you know, all of that. And yeah, I was really struck by the fact that at least I historically, have considered all of those things from a fairly serious perspective. And that limits the engagement with poetry in a major way. I mean, don't you think people come to poems you expect to find the weighty truth?

Rags: Yeah, well, that's, that's how people think of poetry and think of poets, and historically, it's actually pretty accurate, I think, for the most part, you know, because poetry can speak to things about our inner life that are difficult to otherwise articulate, because it's so image laden, like our dreams, and it's so full of metaphor. We don't think of it as a place where you can find humor, although there are some really wonderful, humorous poems. People tend to diss that kind of poetry and the word they use for this is "doggerel." Like in a song, you would refer to it as a ditty, something that isn't really taken too seriously. And so it's very, it's very light, you know, it doesn't have the depth or the thoughtfulness that you would think of as poetry.

Catherine: Well, it's interesting. I mean, I agree with everything that you said and at the same time, when I consider my inner life and my dreams, they are not without humor. Now, I'm not going to go into an overshare here or anything, but I have found it very useful to laugh often at the things that pop up in my psyche, and I'm thinking also of Freud's observation that one of the key ways to locate the operation of psyche in your daily life is slips of the tongue and puns. That's the psyche really likes to pun. I mean, there are many different forms of humor. You say ditties and doggerel. I get that. But when we talk about irony, satire, parody, all of those can have really serious targets. And then, of course, there is unabashed silliness. And I do have an unabashed silliness poem that I'm going to start us off with. 

But first, the caveat that funniness is a subjective judgment, so those of you out there, if you hate some of these poems, and you don't think they're even remotely funny, what can I say? You have a little insight into the way my mind works. And Rags you have at least one poem for us today, right?

Rags: I do have one funny poem. 

Catherine: Okay. This poem is "Cinderella" by Roald Dahl. Naturally, in my line of work, the fairy tale title is what attracted me. Here we go.... 

Cinderella by Roald Dahl

Rags: Oh my god, that is precious. So good. Oh, I love it. Well, it definitely you know it takes the takes the story in a different direction. Good for him.

Catherine: And the rhyming. I mean, it does seem like these sin- songy rhymes are one of the things that often makes a poem funny. Certainly makes it fun to read. I mean, that was super fun to read. But it's also one of the things that now makes poems seem unsophisticated. 

Rags: That's true. And also, it's just a technical thing, but what they call "feminine" rhymes where you have a two syllable word and, and two two syllable words rhyme and the first, the emphasis is on the first syllable. So like, what was that line with the honey in it? 

Catherine: Let's see. She says, "No more princes, no more money. I have had my taste of honey."

Rags: Yes money, honey, those kinds of rhymes where they're two syllables, and the emphasis is on the first syllable, tend to be funny. And you find, you know, and you've seen a bunch of them in that poem.

Catherine: Well, I have one other one. It's not as good I have to say, but there's something I get a kick out of. If you Google funny poems, I'll spare you a lot of trouble. Don't go to the first 15 results that will come up in your searches. Not only do they give the same poems over and over again, but they're a great example of some of the sort of dumb things. And, you know, reading them I was thinking, wow, we so associate silliness and just a good chuckle with childhood. I mean, why do we have to think of the business of being an adult as something that's so extraordinarily drab, I wonder?

So this one, it's not of the same caliber, but I think it's pretty funny. It's called "Mother Doesn't Want a Dog" by Judith Viorst. 

"Mother Doesn't Want a Dog" by Judith Viorst

Catherine: Oh yes, well, I grew up with a mom who really didn't want a dog and then my childhood dog Scamp ended up being attached to her more than anyone else. 

Rags: Oh, yeah. That's funny. Yeah, yes. We all work sometimes. dog, the dog decides.

Catherine: That's right. The dog does decide, right? The dog does decide.

Rags: Well, that's a good poem. I enjoyed that. 

Catherine: Good. And you know, she is the author of a self-help book that was really popular, I think in the late 70s maybe, called Necessary Losses. So, one does not have to be completely divorced from the serious realities of adult life, to be able to find some humor in some of this. Right? 

Rags: Well, the thing is like about that poem, is that one for a funny poem to be good, there has to be something about it that is actually true, I think. And in that poem,  it's everything she says about the dog jumping up on the bed and snoring and you know, it's what happens. And then the idea that, oh, she doesn't want a dog or whenever she sees the snake. It's like, okay, I get that.

Catherine: Right. It occurs to me that a lot of the poems that I like, that I find humorous, they're silly, obviously, or there's a certain slyness or they go against the grain, you know. Yhey dismantle our sentimentality in some way. And that's one form of the larger category of making the unexpected turn, which is the thing that I really enjoy in poetry. When a poem not only shows me something new, again, in the elevated sense, but does that by turning a corner and having me go "well wow, I never even I never even saw that coming."

Rags: You know, in songwriting, and they call that ringing the bell. Ringing the bell. It's the line that sets up the hook of the of the song is caught and it has it each time it comes around in the chorus, the line that sets it up has to be stronger and offer a different angle into it, you know, and so you keep at the beginning of the song, you know is the song and then as the song progresses, and these setup lines get stronger and stronger and give new and new meaning to the, to the title of the song, it you know, it gives, it's like a punch line. You know, when you're telling a joke, if you start with a punch line, it's not much of a joke, you got to build up build up to it. And both of those poems you read did that. I liked that.

Catherine: Well, given this line of thinking about unexpected and going against the grain the sentimentality, I looked for an anti-love poem. Let's see if anyone did anything funny. And I found this poem by Ross Gay, a poet, I have been enjoying a lot over the last few years, called "Love, I'm Done with You."

"Love, I'm Done with You" by Ross Gay

Rags: Wow Ross.

Catherine: Yes, don't you wonder who he wrote that for?

Rags: It's anti love poem, you found it.

Catherine: I think this is funny. But it also brought me to another thought about humor in poetry. And it's not-- this issue isn't limited to poetry-- but it's the ambiguity of the intention of the author. You know, if you go to watch stand-up comedy, whether or not the person is funny, you know that's their intent. Right? But with the poet unless you have a few of their poems so that you can compare and you kind of get into this their groove, you don't necessarily know if they're trying to be funny.

Rags: I guess some of them might be a little more difficult if you have no context and you don't know the poet. Maybe you would take them more seriously. And I could see where that one you could. I mean, I hope it's not autobiographical for Ross Gay! 

Catherine: He wrote a fantastic book on joy so, I think he's alright. Well, when I think about the unexpected turn and humor, and a building of humor, you know, the more poems you read, the more just the light comes on inside, I think of Billy Collins. I have a couple of his poems that I wanted to read. 

This poem by Billy Collins called "Litany" may be a fitting follow up on the theme of going against the grain, a little bit of our sentimentality, dismantling a little what we take as serious. So, this is "Litany" by Billy Collins and it begins with a little epigraph: "You are the bread and the knife, the crystal goblet and the wine...." Jacques Crickillon

"Litany" by Bill Collins

Rags: Oh, that's lovely. Really lovely. You know the thing about his poetry, especially those ones that have some humor in them is, they're not just funny poems. There's humor in them but the poem has something in it that's beyond the humor. The humor serves something else. That's what I really like about that. So, that brings to mind a poem. Maybe you'll allow me to read it to you, called When I Die." Do you remember that Dave Carter song "When I Die?" This is my version.

When I Die by Rags Rosenberg
after Dave Carter

I won’t be a whisper on the wind.
I won’t be a single flake in the gentle white snowfall.
I won’t be a great eagle or a grey wolf
or the slow travel of the clouds overhead.
I won’t be a new bud on the old oak tree 
or a twinkling constellation in the summer sky.

No, I’ll be the stubborn spot on your carpet
where your lover’s dog did his business.
I’ll be the broken vacuum you can’t afford to fix,
the leak in your roof
and the stain on your ceiling.

I’ll be the scratch on the lens,
The molar that aches to be pulled,
The itch you can’t reach,
the bandage that won’t stick,
the troubling dark spot on your x-ray.

Look for me. 
You won’t have far to look.
I’ll be around.

Catherine:  Oh my goodness, the vacuum I can't afford to fix. Well, I'm looking forward to your presence in my life from the afterlife Rags. Thank you. Thank you for that. Is that poem in any of your available poetry books or on your website or anything?

Rags: It is not yet. 

Catherine: No? Okay. Okay. Okay. Well, you let me know when it is. I will. Well, so this is this is a little bit of a redirection since I don't have anything to offer. I haven't written a poem about my afterlife. But I do have another one from Billy Collins that I want to read called "The Lanyard."

Rags: Oh, "The Lanyard." I love this one. 

"The Lanyard" by Billy Collins

Rags: Oh, Billy Collins, you go boy,

Catherine: Do you have a favorite Billy Collins poem?

Rags: I have. Let me get to it here. This is a poem called "The Revenant" that I've always loved of Billy Collins. And just as we've discussed, this is you know, it's funny as heck and yet beneath it there something he's getting at. Anyway, "The Revenant "by Billy Collins.

The Revenant by Billy Collins (Collins is reading the poem)

Catherine: Oh, I love that. The perspective of the dog. So that's the second funny dog poem we've had. And is there any way we can do a fairy tale three and have three funny dog poems, I wonder?

Rags: I think that we could probably accomplish that. I actually have one that I wrote for our dog, Steinbeck. This is a poem called "Lament." Doesn't sound like a funny poem, does it? 

Lament by Rags Rosenberg

When they took my balls,
I limped around the back yard for a week,
not sure what had happened or why.

That was a long time ago,
but I still remember the details of the event
like it was yesterday.

When they took my balls,
they hid the raw wound beneath a clean, white, 
woven bandage so I couldn’t lick it.

I was a whelp then, still in my magic,
and, still today, though they don’t suspect it,
I remember who and what I was.

When they took my balls,
they dropped them into a clear plastic baggie,
the kind they use for their lunch sandwiches,

and dropped the baggie into a 
clean, stainless steel trash can marked
“Hazardous Waste.” 

"Hazardous Waste? Can you believe it!
Just as well. I had no further use for them.
Can’t sew ‘em back on!

When they took my balls
I was embarrassed to be seen. I lay on my small be
on the bedroom floor concealing my shame.

I concealed my shame then, and since.
I can’t say why. After all,
I’d done nothing wrong.

I was a good dog. I tried hard
to follow the sounds coming out
of their mouths, repeated sounds, 

sounds that seemed to indicate 
some action on my part 
was required. 

I’d been trying really hard, 
doing my very best, 
when they took my balls.

Catherine: Well, that reminds me that humor once again is very much a matter of perspective. But it's a funny word, "balls." Balls is a funny word, especially in a poem. It's time for us to wrap this up alas, but it takes me to one other poem that just feels so perfectly fitting. It's called Frau Freud. Mrs. Freud. And it's by Carol Ann Duffy.

Frau Freud by Carol Ann Duffy from The World's Wife

Ladies, for argument's sake, let us say
that I've seen my fair share of ding-a-ling, member and jock,
of todger and nudger and percy and cock, of tackle,
of three-for-a-bob, of willy and winky; in fact,
you could say, I'm as au fait with Hunt-the-Salami
as Ms. M Lewinsky --  equally sick up to here
with the beef bayonet, the pork sword, the saveloy,
love-muscle, night-crawler, dong, the dick, the prick,
dipstick and wick, the rammer, the slammer, the rupert,
the schlong. Don't get me wrong, I've no axe to grind
with the snake in the trousers, the wife's best friend,
the weapon, the python -- I suppose what I mean is,
ladies, dear ladies, the average penis -- not pretty...
the squint of its envious solitary eye...one's feeling of
pity...

Catherine: There you have it, right. The joy of language, the silliness, the slyness, the dismantling of sentiments, the unexpected turn. All right there in one poem.

Rags: I love that poem. I have one more I'd like to share with you if it's okay. And it's one that I wrote about being a poet be about being a writer, and it's called "Blessing."

Blessing by Rags Rosenberg

When the muse delivers the goods to your door,
may you be sufficiently shit-faced to invite her in.

May you be ruthless enough to toss your first-born 
back into the shallows, brave enough to suffer your 

ill-conceived metaphors, lazy clichés, 
shameless plagiarisms, and just plain bad ideas.

May you be foolish enough, despite all of that,
to forge ahead.

May the clever ideas pass you by
and find some other sucker,

while you continue to circle that one nagging question 
you’re still trying to articulate.

May you never be granted a laurel upon which to rest,
not even for a moment.

May you die as reviled as Joyce,
as penniless as Poe.

Catherine: That's a heck of a career that you imagine there. And then this moment, that line about being foolish enough to go on. Thank you so much for joining me and for throwing your poems into the mix. I loved it. Great.

Rags; Well, I really appreciate that you do this every year in April, you know, and help us celebrate  National Poetry Month. It's a great service you provide. Thank you.

Catherine: I have one other poem that we're going to close with but first a big welcome to new email subscribers:  Susan, Cathrine, Robin, Jacquie, Steven, and Sam. Welcome to Myth Matters! 

If you're new to Myth Matters, I invite you to head over to the Mythic Mojo website. You'll find a transcript of this episode, information about my mentorship and consulting services and other offerings, and you can also join the email list, if you'd like to receive links to new Myth Matters episodes in your inbox.

Thank you to Kim for becoming a patron of Myth Matters. The patreon patrons and bandcamp supporters of Myth Matters make this podcast possible. If you're finding something of value here at Myth Matters, I hope you'll consider joining them. If this isn't possible-- post a positive review or comment-- and thank you for your support of the show. It means a lot.

This foray into humor and poetry to celebrate National Poetry month 2024, reminded me of  my college days and an old favorite, Edna St. Vincent Millay. In closing, here are a few very short verses from her collection Figs from Thistles.

FIGS FROM THISTLES

FIRST FIG

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night:
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends-
It gives a lovely light!

 SECOND FIG

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

 THE UNEXPLORER

There was a road ran past our house
Too lovely to explore.
I asked my mother once-she said
That if you followed where it led
It brought you to the milk-man's door.
(That's why
I have not traveled more.)

And on that note and with tongue firmly in cheek, I want to say "thank you" once again to Rags Rosenberg for joining me today. I'll share his instagram @ragsrosenberg and website with the transcript of this episode.

I hope one of these poems provided you with a laugh or a smile. Is there a poem that you're currently enjoying? Please share it with me. You can post it in the comments for this episode or email me. Both options available at my website, mythicmojo.com

And that's it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself and until next time-- read some great poetry and  keep the mystery in your life alive.