Last week on the Seattle Poetry Chain, Ed Skoog shared a wonderful poem about a great deli. Among other positive comments, it evoked this particular one:
Hey, I like this one!
Posted by Andrew Cole on March 13, 2009 at 12:58 PM
We’ll see if we can continue the Andrew-Cole-pleasing streak to two weeks with the newest poet on the Seattle Poetry Chain, Eric McHenry. Here’s why Mr. Skoog chose Mr. McHenry:
Eric McHenry, who lives quietly in Wedgwood, is well known for his highly-structured and yet colloquial rhyming poems, his nimble wit, his goodness, and his height. His first book The Potscrubber Lullabies, was published last year by the British/American press Waywiser, and won the Kate Tufts Award, which is a Big Deal. He also reviews poetry for the New York Times. He has written the only perfect American poem, “Rebuilding Year.”
I would like to point out that Mr. McHenry’s poem is due to appear in the next issue of Seattle Review, but they kindly gave us permission to debut it here. Thanks, Seattle Review! And here is Eric McHenry’s poem for the Poetry Chain:
Thanks to Ed Skoog and many thanks to Eric McHenry for joining us today. Tune in next week to see who Eric McHenry has chosen as the next link in the Seattle Poetry Chain.
Hey, I actually like one of these!
Ouch. I kinda like that one. It’s painful and funny and not self-important or impenetrable.
Blind people don’t read poetry, I guess. Well, not this poem, anyway.
“dead/1237569708-theworst.jpg” doesn’t even rhyme.
In fact, half of the poems in this chain have been inaccessible: 2, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 15 and 17 have all been images instead of text. 6 and 10 at least have the excuse that weird spacing can be difficult to do in html, but what’s with the rest of them?
The poem transcribed from the JPEG for RJL20 @3 and @4:
The Worst
No, the worst was watching Darren trip
on his own hightop, pitch
facelong into a wheelstop, chip
his tooth and split his chin. “It’s just a bitch,”
Trent said. For fifteen minutes Darren lay
there in a parking space, spat blood, and slid
his tongue through the black gap we didn’t say
made him look stupider although it did.
How grateful for that one astringent truth
Trent summoned, if for nothing else, we were.
Darren, you are going to wear that tooth
to school and that’s a bitch and that’s for sure.
Thanks, rob. I can see just fine, but I have friends who can’t. It just strikes me as weird that of the nine poems which have been posted as images, only two of them have any typographical oddities which could explain why.
I like this poem, but that “we were” in the last stanza is really, really awkward.
Enjoyed this poem and have enjoyed McHenry’s work. Paul, keep up the good work with the Chain and Midnight Bus Poetry.
I like this one, too, though RJL20 is right, that “we were” is awkward as hell.