Jennifer Reeser sent Jack Foley this poem—and challenge:
HOW ABOUT?
How about you write a happy poem today,
with harps and harpsichords that play in major A,
remembering those hopeful things you used to say?
What if you imagined you were touring France --
the streets of Paris, say, where every passing glance
would seem to offer you a swift and sweet romance?
It needn't be about a great thing. Something humble
would work: a wildflower's wilted, yellow umbel
attracting ladybugs, or weighty bees to bumble;
safe in your favorite place, a fine, French Quarter door.
For once forego oppression, poverty, and war.
You do not have to save the planet anymore.
Your very first attempt at making rhyming verse --
remember it? No subject matter ever worse
than rainbows praised, then folded in a plastic purse.
And yet, your teacher told you it had wit and charm,
that it was new to school -- like you -- and southern, warm,
and if it didn't heal, at least it did no harm.
So no more "beaten puppy" poems. Are we agreed?
We all have veins, which, cut with our own hands, will bleed.
Of suffering, The World Review has no more need.
-- Jennifer Reeser
Jack Foley replied,
HOW ABOUT YOU?
How about you write a happy poem?
No more of scandals like The Teapot Dome
A happy poem to thrill you and hit home.
You aren't an insect like the praying mantis
Get down and dirty, unlike your old aunties.
Think colored underwear and sexy panties.
The world is going quickly down the drain
And everywhere you look you notice pain
We don't have to hear that song again.
Death's the lord that rules this whirling earth
But though there's death, there's also daily birth
And where there's birth, there's also joy and mirth.
Turn off the side that thrills to homicide
Be happy that you have another side
That lovely woman makes a lovely bride
And you have many times discovered blisses
In your lover's captivating kisses
(Please don't remind me of the pain a bris is).
A happy poem looks deeply in the eyes
Of someone you see always with surprise
But wouldn't ever harm or compromise.
A happy poem does not deny the dearth
Of happiness but answers it with mirth.
A happy poem returns us to the earth.
-- Jack Foley
Jack sent me this correspondence, including the Sandburg “Snatch” just below. I assume he meant to challenge me, too, so I wrote my “Happy Pome” and sent it to Jack and Jennifer:
Are you happy? It’s the only way to be, kid.
Yes, be happy. It’s a good nice way to be.
But not happy-happy kid, don’t
be too doubled-up doggone happy.
It’s the doubled-up doggone happy-
happy people…bust hard…they
do bust hard…when they bust.
Be happy, kid, go to it, but not too doggone happy.
—Carl Sandburg, “Snatch of Sliphorn Jazz”
HAPPY POME
Are you happy? It’s the only way to be, kid.
Yes, be happy. It’s a good nice way to be.
But not happy-happy kid, don’t
be too doubled-up doggone happy.
It’s the doubled-up doggone happy-
happy people…bust hard…they
do bust hard…when they bust.
Be happy, kid, go to it, but not too doggone happy.
—Carl Sandburg, “Snatch of Sliphorn Jazz”
I am happy happy happy --
Yes, I know I'm kinda sappy,
But I'm happy as the friggin' day is long,
So I've put on my toupee
To write a happy pome today --
If you've music you can sing it as a song.
Though the world is sort of crappy,
And I haven't had my nappy
(Not a didy but a sleep that's nice and long),
I'll put on a smile that's silly
And I'll wear it willy-nilly
Like a jockstrap that is very like a thong.
I will eat my tapi-tapi-
Oca pudding till I'm whacky,
Then I'll sit and count my fingers and my toes
Till my cat goes lappy-lappy
At her milk like it's a frappe
And I get a drink of water from my hose.
Oh, I wish I had my pappy
Back although he gets quite snappy
When he's wakened from his slumber in the ground.
But I'd say to him, "Dear Daddy,
I exist up here quite sadly.
I'd be happy if you'd rise and hang around."
-- Lewis Turco
And Jack replied again with other poems by himself and other people:
DONE
Oh, he wishes for his pappy
Though his pappy can be snappy
(After all he’s dead and buried in the ground)
So the Turk puts on his gnome
Hat, produces quite a poeme
(But--his pappy’s turning, whirling all around!)
-- Jack Foley
A HAPPY POEM
Happiness is an epiphenomenon,
A by-product of something else,
Like yesterday, when I did errands for a friend
And realized her day would be better:
Then I felt happy. But I didn't do it to feel happy
Or to make her happy, as if cause and effect
Were the only thing in the human world...
We do so much that is indirect, find ourselves
When we don't know we are lost; return
A favour when someone does not expect it, recall,
Incidentally, the walk across the bridge,
Meant only to get to Cambridge, the rest
Of our lives, become a father again.
Happiness has its own course. We find it
Along the way.
-- Peter Sherburn-Zimmer
A DULCET AIR
A lark, a sprite, a glass of wine and thou
In a pastoral setting, picnicking wow
This is life with a capital L, and how!
I might think of France, Corsica or the Ardennes
But in a dell or on a delta - life is made of friends
Joined to enjoy overflowing cups making temporal amends
To me a dandelion's seeds blown into the blue on high
A silhouette of cypress against a blazing sunset sky
Or the unseen flight a single bird calling on the fly
Such are simple joys which often get passed by
Without a thought, taking note or ever wondering why
Even while, for many, happiness is as remote, even sly
We don’t have to focus on sufferance and pain
We don’t have to join the dirge of those who complain
We don’t have to compete to see whose most insane
This world is a world, much as any, that can be found
It is glorious, verdant, blue, green white and round
It’s moon is a wonder giving us mysteries that abound
And so it is to happiness that our verse should be turned
It is happiness through which our souls become learned
And to happiness that we would dedicate all we’ve earned
A dusky meadow, upland in some seaboard state
Where fireflies and children, with joy, have a date
And watermelon waits, with a cake on a plate
And happy, happy eyes look on and reminisce
And happy, happy smiles whisper for a kiss
As musicians warm up for folk-dancy bliss
-- Dan Brady
A HAPPY POEM
A happy poem is the relief
of turning away from ominous grief
looking at a luscious tree
sharing fruit and shade with me
-- Nina Serrano
THESE WORDS
These words are short these words are long.
What does it matter if they’re wrong?
Let’s squeeze them all into a song.
Sing praises to the tardigrade,
(Its jolly rounded shape, well made!)
and feed the world some marmalade.
We fret too much or fret too little
soon our mouths are full of spittle.
Oooo our psyche is so brittle.
The young dies young the old dies old.
It’s not a pretty scene, all told.
Living has never been so bold.
Misfits, servants, addicts, lovers,
strive and nest without the buffers.
So fly and wade the humble plovers.
If Christ and Buddah return today
neither of them has much to say
except the teas in Cafe Bouquet.
Take a cup and drown the sorrow.
No scam is like that of tomorrow.
We all return the stuff we borrow.
Sing hey hey hey, sing hee hee ha.
Sing hum-di-dump, and ooo-la-la
and a wump and a tooth and a tree, wa wa.
-- Clara Hsu
evening
the older folks
who live here
gather on the porch
just before the sun goes down
before the birds
go sleeping
into the branches
before the sun
moves gently
out of the leaves
and they turn
from brilliant green
to indistinguishable
shades of blue
before the bear comes out
with her cub
before the deer
go home
with their
fawns
how wonderful
to hear them
the older folks
where i live
talking
and laughing
still
-- Deborah Wenzel
A HAPPY POEM – WHAT A CONCEPT
A happy poem - What a concept! -
requires faith from the onset,
and more courage than a lovely sonnet
It could never be arranged by any contract
but might be found in alien contact
if it led to a joyous sex act
Imagine soaring at light speed
while every molecule decreed
interstellar bliss achieved!
But only planted firmly on the earth,
the home planet in homegrown dirt,
can we discover that golden mirth
that so overjoys us in our skin
that we slip loose of it time and again
and dissolve into an autumn wind
whose face is intimate, but unseen
a welcome sigh out of a dream
that we once lived and loved and leaned
into a bloodstream almost divine
beyond the concepts - time and mind,
beyond the light and awestruck blind
we see again through scaleless eyes
the joyous world and glowing skies
beauty herself undisguised
-- Jake Berry
THIS IS A HAPPY POEM
And why not make room for some porter ale in Pollyanna tones
which will quash your global ostrich blues. Take all your finer tokens
for granted. Pipe down on skunk-fume, spread your dijon
Instead. Remember even drips can inspire love by telephone.
Dog-eared flowers & tin pan songs aren’t so easily forsaken.
O the tender scent comes fresh apricots, lightly shaken.
And here’s the rub. The best ice cream flavor ever chosen
sticks to the page, drips downside eyes & honey cones—
quadruple scoops are proof of purchase alone.
Skip who’s-up-the-creek, such inklings thrown
trip you for a loop at best. One single couplet coupon
favors lucky charms. Touch his/her cubit as shown.
Joyous sea waves crash air holes together eloping
foam. A love note tucked between some old leather tome
is about as absurd as finding blackbirds or a polished stone.
A bluebird sings up sudden without thought and roams
all, not only one third of sky. A clutch of words can crack ribs open
from a hidden nest deep inside your chest. Rest.
Find yourself a happy poem.
-- Mary-Marcia Casoly
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ANOTHER HAPPY POEM
Light as a feather
Clouds in a rosy sunrise
Holiday weekend!
-- Adelle Foley
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Perhaps everyone should accept Jennifer’s challenge and write a happy poem today!
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Jack, Please tell your lucky, talented wife, Adelle, that she has made my day, and that the crested California Foleys have gone to the top of the Swamp Reesers' Christmas card list this year. It seems that Lew, you and I have set fire beneath a few heels ;-)
Jennifer
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The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics, Including Odd and Invented Forms, Revised and Expanded Edition by Lewis Putnam Turco, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England (www.UPNE.com) , 2012 • 384 pp. 3 illus. 5 x 7 1/2" Reference & Bibliography / Poetry 978-1-61168-035-5, paperback.
