Laugh, Laugh, I Made You Cry

by Neal Whitman, Poetry Prof

Last month I got one of those “end of the year” bonus checks –– no, nothing like what Wall Street investment bankers get –– but a hearty response to the December 1 Poetry Prof piece on whether or not haiku was poetry. One of the readers who posted a comment, AgSynclair, also sent a personal email and encouraged me to write about senryu, the variation of haiku that focuses on people rather than nature. Senryu is not always intended to be humorous, but often is. So, how about this? This month let’s talk about humor in poetry, specifically in short form.

First, a brief word about senryu. Again, not always mean to be “ha-ha” funny, it does capture what I think of as the comedy of life: our misfortunes, hardships, and woes that beckon us to laugh to keep from crying. I may not yet have a knack for it, but how about this one I wrote last week after this guy cut me off in traffic:

Toyota Tundra driver
flicking his cigarette
his “Breathe Fresh” bumper sticker

I read a lot of senryu –– that’s the best way to learn how to write it, eh? Much of it brings a half-smile, but never an out-loud laugh. And, this I have noted. When the haiku form is used for humor, I see some in the haiku community sneer –– and, yes, sometimes I can hear a “growl.” As for me, I love it. One old college pal, when he heard that I wrote haiku, sent me to this link for “Haiku Error Messages”: http://strangeplaces.net/weirdthings/haiku.html

I found these LOL. Just for instance…

First snow, then silence
This thousand dollar screen dies
so beautifully.

Okay, not everyone is into techie humor, but for the lit-crit crowd, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival last year held a Hamlet-Themed Haiku Contest. One of the top vote getters:

To be? Not to be?
Who cares! Am I fat in tights?
That is the question.

Humor, of course, is our earliest introduction to poetry. It is there at the beginning with a gurgle and giggle. The earliest poem I learned (maybe yours too) was, “Hickory, dickory, dock, a mouse ran up the clock. . . . ” This magical bit of verse has been introducing children to rhyme and meter since it was published in 1744. And, you know what? It is a limerick. Ah, the limerick. “There once was a man from Nantucket…” Okay, we can stop there. But, wait a sec. Here is a version I can print:

There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all of his cash in a bucket.
But his daughter, named Nan,
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket.

The limerick flows so smoothly you might never have paid attention to it structure. So, just to set the record: the 1st, 2nd, and 5th lines rhyme and have the same number of syllables, usually eight or nine. The 3rd and 4th also rhyme and have the same syllable count, typically five or six. Ogden Nash wrote mostly humorous verse and was a master of the limerick, for example,

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the fly, “let us flee!”
“Let us fly!” said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

On the other hand, a more serious poet, Conrad Aiken, also wrote limericks, including this one about itself!

The limerick’s, admitted, a verse form:
a terse form: a curse form: a hearse form.
It may not be lyric.
and at best it’s Satyric,
and a whale of a tail in perverse form.

One of my favorite poets of short humor was David McCord and I always have been fond of his “Waiter’s Epitaph,”

By and by
God caught his eye.

A short poem, yes. How about an even shorter one by Anonymous? “Fleas,”

Adam
Had em.

An even shorter one? One word title. One word text.

“I”
Why?

Its author, Charles Ghinga was known as “Father Goose,” and also wrote a large body of work for adults. I find it funny, though Christopher McTeague, a writer and book collector of some renown, commented that, “Along with its title, the poem creates a haunting, understated little couplet that continues to beg the most poignant, timeless, rhetorical question of our existence.”

There are many brands of humor poetry. One in growing popularity is cowboy poetry. We just attended the Monterey Music & Poetry Festival and loved the humorous verse served up by Doris Daley who had just won the 2009 Western Music Association Best Female Cowboy Poet of the Year and Best Cowboy Poetry CD of the year [http://www.dorisdaley.com/]. Just to share a taste, here is the last couplet in her “The Awards Show” poem in which she demonstrates the self-effacing nature of this genre.

He’s the Poet of the Year –– you can’t pile it on too deep
Cause for sure he has the outfit – and best of all –– he works for cheap.

Last month, we dove into the deep end of the pool, asking, “Is haiku poetry?” One could say, “Of course,” meaning that it is a poetical form. Those who say, “No,” fall into two camps: those who, perhaps due to its brevity, see it as less than a “real” or “regular” poem and those who, precisely because of its concision, view it as a more difficult, and, hence, higher art.

This month, though we wade in shallow water, humorous verse also invites definitional divides. Is “light verse,” with rhyme and meter, charming, not really poetry? In eye of the beholder, yes? What is doggerel for one reader is transcendent to another. As our editors here at Getting Something Read declaim, Readers Rule. The last word goes to David McCord. God caught his eye on April 13, 1997 (born December 15, 1897): “But if humor and wit are treacherous and volatile goods, they are issued in no standard package.” I will add this: tears are easy; it takes a brave poet to be a clown.

more: Neal Whitman • Poetry Prof.