Many years ago, long before email
submissions, e-zines, and spell check, and long before I had any poems
published in journals, I eagerly awaited the publication of a new journal that
had accepted one of my poems. After months of waiting, the contributor’s copy
arrived. Holding my breath, I tore open the envelope and thumbed through for my
poem. Sure enough, the poem was there, but (horrors!) my name appeared as
“Addle Kenney.” The misspelled last name was bad enough, but “Addle” (muddled,
confused, befuddled, dazed, disoriented)? Years (and many misprints and typos
later), I can laugh about that early experience and cheerfully acknowledge that
these days "Addle" is sometimes spot on.
Having recently remembered that
years-ago poetry story, I thought it might be fun to gather some amusing writing
anecdotes and to post them here on the blog this summer. Accordingly, I invited
several distinguished poet friends to participate, and their responses follow. Here’s hoping
we can beat the heat with some laughter. Enjoy!
P.S. A related prompt for this week follows the anecdotes.
P.S. A related prompt for this week follows the anecdotes.
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From Laura Boss
Award-Winning Poet, Teacher, Founding Editor/Publisher of
Lips Magazine, Poetry Series Director, Dodge Foundation Poet
In July 1988, I was on a 10-day
reading tour of Sicily to celebrate my book On
the Edge of the Hudson winning an American Literary Translators Association
Award. The other featured reader was Maria Mazziotti Gillan for her ALTA award
winning Luce D'Inverno. It was an
exhilarating and heady tour that combined numerous poetry venues as well as TV
appearances throughout the country. Billboards like circus posters with our
names greeted us, as did huge audiences in each city we visited—a heady experience
for two American poets. But at Caltanisetta things changed. After our readings
to a responsive audience, there was a question and answer period. I was
startled and upset when one of the men in the audience angrily asked me if I
took my last name “Boss” to dominate men. As calmly as I could, I responded that
Boss was my former husband's name, the last name of my sons, and I had always
written under the name “Laura Boss.” And although that man didn't seem
convinced, at the reception that followed he asked me (despite his gold wedding
band) if I'd like to go on a date with him. Even now, when Maria and I
reminisce about our ALTA reading tour in Sicily, we always smile when we
remember that male poet with his ironic sexist views.
____________________________________________
From Edwin Romond
Award-winning Poet, Teacher, Dodge Foundation Poet, Playwright, Composer
I think all poets appreciate a generous, maybe even flattering introduction when they are giving a reading. My story is not about one of those!
A few years ago I accepted an invitation to read at a PTA
meeting and the host introduced me as follows: “None of Mr. Romond’s poems
rhyme but some are still good.”
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From Michael T. Young
Award-Winning Poet, NJ State Arts Council Fellowship Recipient, Blogger
Shortly after my first chapbook came out in the mid 90s, I moved to a
new apartment and got a new telephone number. The first week I lived there my
phone rang and someone at the other end asked, “Is Kate Light there?” I said,
“No, but do you mean Kate Light, the poet?” He said, “Yes, I’m trying to sign
up for her workshop.” I said, “Well, I know Kate and can get a message to her
for you. My name is Michael Young.” The caller said, “Michael T. Young?”
I said, “Yes.” He said, “I saw your book at St. Marks Bookstore.” We had a good
laugh and talked a little. He told me the phone number he had for Kate and it
turned out her phone number was only one digit different from my new phone
number. The man simply misdialed resulting in one of the oddest coincidences in
my life.
____________________________________________
From Catherine Doty
Award-winning Poet, Teacher, Artist/Cartoonist,
Dodge Foundation Poet, NEA Fellowship Recipient
Many, many years ago my poem, “Home for a While,” became my first published piece. I was
elated, of course, and when I held the journal at last, I flew through the
pages searching for the poem that would change my life and, perhaps (youth
speaking), the lives of my future fans. And there it was: “Home for a Whale.”
According to Oscar Wilde: “A poet can survive anything but a misprint.”
____________________________________________
From Tom Plante
Poet, Award-winning Editorial
Writer, Public Information Writer/Editor, Founding Editor/Publisher Exit 13 Magazine, Fanwood (NJ) Arts
Council Co-Director
www.amazon.com/Atlas-Apothecary-Tom-Plante/dp/1944251774
www.amazon.com/Atlas-Apothecary-Tom-Plante/dp/1944251774
Back in my Berkeley days (1973-86) when I was reading at lots of venues in the San Francisco Bay area, I interviewed Gregory Corso for the “Berkeley Barb” newspaper. In the interview, Gregory recalled advising the poet Bob Kaufman to be funny. "Thus his humor spared him," Corso said. I was scraping along in those days and thought I was making a dent in the scene. But it only took a visit to friends in Oregon to put things in perspective. My friend wrote a brief human interest story about my visit and submitted it to her weekly newspaper. The article appeared the day before my return trip to Berkeley. Somehow in the re-typing I became “Tome Plant, reporter for the Berkeley Barge.”
____________________________________________
From Donna Baier Stein
Award-winning Poet, Novelist &
Short Story Writer, Founding Publisher of Tiferet
Journal, Workshop Leader
The first poem I ever published came out in an anthology called Kansas City Outloud, edited by John Ciardi. The poem is called "Easy Marks" and was written after I read Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.
On a whim, I mailed the poem to Bradbury.
Imagine my astonishment when I received a letter back from him. That letter
still hangs, framed, in my office, decades later. He told me he was working on
the movie that would soon be out (starring Jason Robards). The top 2/3 of his
stationery was filled with an intricate, sci fi drawing. I thought for decades
he had drawn it himself until I showed it to a friend who identified the work.
Unfortunately I now can't remember who the artist was! But here's the picture.
If anyone recognizes it, I'd love to be reminded.
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From Bob Rosenbloom
Award-winning Poet, Poetry Series Director, Attorney,
Former Stand Up Comic
Before I became a poet, I was a standup comic and wrote
jokes, something that’s often felt in my poems. Here are a couple of those
early writing experiences.
Paul Colby, the owner of The Other End, his successor club to
The Bitter End, asked me to meet him to discuss the possibility of working as a
house comic and developing a routine. He had seen me on his talent showcase.
When I went to meet him, there were two other guys at the table. I was willing
to wait but he motioned for me to sit with them. Those two guys were pitching a
movie scene for him and didn't notice me at all. As it turned out, those two
guys were Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs, which I didn’t realize until halfway through
my burger deluxe.
Joan Rivers bought unsolicited material, at ten dollars a
joke. I went backstage after one of her shows to have her autograph her then current
book. When I reached her in line, I told her she bought six of the twenty jokes
I sent to her in three mailings. She asked me to tell one of the jokes. I did,
and she said she didn't recognize it.
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From Deborah LaVeglia
Award-winning Poet, Workshop Leader, Long-time
Director of Poetswednesday (the longest running poetry series in NJ)
I was talking to poets in the audience after a reading I did. I had commented on my body in one of the poems that I'd read. So, a young guy, in his early 20s, made a point of telling me how it annoyed him that women always write about their bodies in poems. Then he got up in the open and read a very long poem about his girlfriend's body. Haha! I wrote a poem about it.
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From Joe Weil
Poet, Musician, Professor at Binghamton University-SUNY, Appeared on Bill Moyer's PBS documentary, "Fooling With Words," Dodge Poet, Poetry Series Director, Journal Founder and Editor
www.amazon.com/Night-Duluth-Joe-Weil/dp/1630450278
A number of years ago, I was one of the Dodge poets at the East Brunswick Poetry Festival. This was maybe my second year as a Dodge poet in the schools. At that time, they bussed students in from the whole of Middlesex county, so there were a couple of hundred kids in the auditorium—maybe more—and I believe we were reading with Thomas Lux as headliner. It was my turn to go up on stage and read. Just prior to that moment, I'd been to the men's room. I guess I was in a hurry. I started reading my poem "Fists" and heard: "Psst, psst," an urgent hissing whispering sound coming from one of my fellow poets below me on stage. Instinct told me to look down. I'm short wasted and so I often buy longer shirts to tuck them in better. In this case, the shirt saved me from indecent exposure. At least a half a foot of green shirt was sticking out from my zipper. I looked down. I looked up. Lots of laughs. I turned my back to the audience, tucked myself in, and continued with the poem. I sold 28 books that day. I think it was the "ice skater falls but smiles and completes her routine" effect. Works every time.
From Maria Mazziotti Gillan
www.amazon.com/Night-Duluth-Joe-Weil/dp/1630450278
A number of years ago, I was one of the Dodge poets at the East Brunswick Poetry Festival. This was maybe my second year as a Dodge poet in the schools. At that time, they bussed students in from the whole of Middlesex county, so there were a couple of hundred kids in the auditorium—maybe more—and I believe we were reading with Thomas Lux as headliner. It was my turn to go up on stage and read. Just prior to that moment, I'd been to the men's room. I guess I was in a hurry. I started reading my poem "Fists" and heard: "Psst, psst," an urgent hissing whispering sound coming from one of my fellow poets below me on stage. Instinct told me to look down. I'm short wasted and so I often buy longer shirts to tuck them in better. In this case, the shirt saved me from indecent exposure. At least a half a foot of green shirt was sticking out from my zipper. I looked down. I looked up. Lots of laughs. I turned my back to the audience, tucked myself in, and continued with the poem. I sold 28 books that day. I think it was the "ice skater falls but smiles and completes her routine" effect. Works every time.
____________________________________________
From Maria Mazziotti Gillan
Award-Winning Poet, Founder/Executive
Director of the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College, founding
editor of the Paterson Literary Review, director of the Creative
Writing Program and Professor of Poetry at Binghamton University-SUNY
When I think about the funny
things that have happened to me in my life as a poet, I think one of the
funniest things was also horrifying and painful. I'll let you judge.
In 2010 I went to the University
of Rome to read my poems and I had a wonderful experience, warm and welcoming.
My daughter came with me and we left Rome for Florence where I had two reading
scheduled, one in the oldest reading series in Florence, so old they even had
invitations on parchment paper. I was very excited and when we checked into the
hotel, I decided I would take a shower. I admit that I never saw a shower that
looked quite like that. It was in the middle of the room and the grab bars were
on the walls, which were about 10 feet away! In order to reach them I would've
needed to have very long arms. The shower had bifold doors, which only attached
at the top. I stepped in and turned on the shower but in another second the
showerhead fell off! When it did, it hit me on the head, and water sprayed the
entire bathroom. My daughter called out from our room. "Mom there's water
rushing out of the bathroom. What did you do?"
Though I'm short, I managed to shove the showerhead back on
and turn the shower off. Unfortunately, the floor was marble so when I stepped
out of the shower I slid across the room and landed on my face and shoulder. I
didn't know a broken nose would result in so much blood, but it sure did, and I
quickly realized I had broken my shoulder as well. My daughter called an
ambulance and the EMT s arrived. They were two very thin and not very tall men
who first asked me to get up. I informed them I was in too much pain—I could
not move. They conferred in Italian. I suppose they thought that I could not
understand them. I understood them perfectly as they commented on my weight, which
they thought was unbelievably high. They finally went back to the ambulance and
came back with a metal contraption that they could slide under me. It looked
like a torture device. It had big metal teeth, and they slid one side under me
and then the other side until two sets of teeth linked. The stretcher could not
fit in the elevator as Italian elevators tend to be quite small. So, they
proceeded to carry me down three flights of curving stairs, cursing the whole
time over how heavy I was and having to stop every five or six steps to put me
down. Every time they stopped the teeth of the stretcher caught my rear end,
and I screamed.
By the time we got to the lobby, I had attracted quite an
audience and, because I moaned and screamed, I saw people's faces looking at me
in alarm. Since I was naked, I was very happy that my daughter had found a towel
to throw over me and that the ambulance people tucked a blanket around me.
Once in the ambulance the two EMTs kept up their
conversation about my weight, still oblivious to the fact that I understood
every word they were saying. Finally, I told them but they kept on anyway.
Apparently they didn't believe that I understood them but, then, one of the EMTs
looked at me and took my hand and held it the rest of the way to the hospital,
an act of kindness that managed for me to erase their conversation about my
weight, which in retrospect was quite funny. It was like being caught in some Lou
Costello movie full of pratfalls and misunderstandings.
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This Week’s Prompt:
For your prompt this week, how
about writing a funny poem. It may be based on something that happened to you
or something you make up, and may be tongue-in-cheeky, absurd, witty, droll, or
just plain goofy. Whether you go for guffaws or simple smiles, go for some fun.
Guidelines:
1. You
can build your poem around a story. For an amusing story poem, you might try
telling something funny that happened to you. You can also write about a person
(historical, sports, or family), place, thing or situation that’s humorous (for
example, a funny-looking animal like the platypus, a particular food
that you either love or dislike intensely, part of the human anatomy such as
the funny bone or the nose, a crazy day at school or work, a dialogue with someone).
2. You might want to try a
parody—a take-off on an already existing poem that you make humorous by keeping the form but changing
the language.
3. You might enjoy including
silly rhymes; sometimes, forced rhymes (like those Dr. Seuss created) are the
funniest. You might even try a funny rap poem.
4. Try writing a limerick. Note:
A limerick is a humorous poem consisting of five lines. The
first, second, and fifth lines must have seven to ten syllables while rhyming
and having the same verbal rhythm. The third and fourth lines only have to have
five to seven syllables, and have to rhyme with each other and have the same
rhythm. See example below.
There was a young
lady whose chin
Resembled the point
of a pin:
So she had it made sharp,
And purchased a harp,
And played several tunes with her chin.
So she had it made sharp,
And purchased a harp,
And played several tunes with her chin.
—By Edward Lear
5. If a limerick doesn’t appeal
to you, consider writing a funny haiku or other form poem (if you’re feeling really ambitious, you night even try a funny
sonnet, sestina or villanelle). If you have a form in mind that you don’t know
a lot about, you can always look the form up online and read some examples before
writing.
6. A funny list poem can be
enjoyable (and easy) to create. “Sick” by Shel Silverstein is a good example: www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/sick
7. Try a humorous ode (for
example, “Ode on a Dill Pickle”).
8. A witty prose poem might be
fun to write (remember that a prose poem is written in paragraphs and isn't bound by lineation or stanzas).
Examples of Funny Poems by Famous Poets:
