Costume Ideas for Furballs
[image: Frightened cat hissing at a cat who is wearing a cone on her neck to protect her stitches]
Caption: The Cone of Indignity, while not the most comfortable accessory, can utterly terrify your sister AND get your hoomins to give you extra treats.
ROSIE (counselor): Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
GREGORY CORSO (caller): To die by cobra is not to die by bad pork.
ROSIE: You know you can just purchase a dye kit, right?
The Tragic Valentines of William Shakespeare:
Hamlet
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
To be? Not to be?
Which one should I do?
In thy orisons be all my sins remembered, valentine!
Cordelia
Daisies are pressed
Under a shoe,
Words can’t express
My love for you.
Lord M*****h
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Is this a dagger
That points me to you?
Shylock
Your blood is red,
My blood is too,
If you prick me, I bleed
Exactly like you.
The Weyard Sisters
Swamp grass is tall, toadstools are cute,
The recipe calls for more eye of newt.
I’ll meet you in thunder, lightning, or in rain, valentine!
Othello
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Trust you almost as much
As some guy on my crew.
Romeo
Roses are cut.
We have to set limits:
I’ll die for you, but
I won’t wait five minutes.
ROSIE (counselor): Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
CINDY JUYOUNG OK (caller): I’ve been eating trees my whole life.
ROSIE: Huh. I was just going to take mine to the curb.
MOORE: With Ma in her nightgown, and me in my cap
BREAKING:
It has come to our attention that “Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas” may have originally been written not by Clement Clarke Moore, but by Revolutionary War Major Henry Livingston, Jr.
This poses a conundrum for the cartoonist, as it calls into question what sort of cap the poet was wearing.
PATIENCE (counselor): Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
W.S. MERWIN (caller): Listen,
PATIENCE: That’s what I’m here for.
MERWIN: With the night falling we are saying thank you.
PATIENCE: You’re welcome. Uh…for what?
MERWIN: We are stopping on the bridges
PATIENCE: Is there traffic behind you?
MERWIN: To bow from the railings.
PATIENCE: Just don’t lean over too far, OK?
MERWIN: We are running
PATIENCE: On the railings?
MERWIN: Out of the glass rooms
PATIENCE: Please tell me you’re not throwing stones.
MERWIN: With our mouths full of food.
PATIENCE: Are you trying to make me worry?
MERWIN: To look at the sky
PATIENCE: Why? What’s happening?
MERWIN: And
PATIENCE: Please don’t tell me they’re bombing the parking lot with turkeys?
MERWIN: Say thank you.
PATIENCE: Um…thanks?
MERWIN: We are standing by the water
PATIENCE: Not too close, I hope?
MERWIN: Thanking it.
PATIENCE: Right. Gratitude is good. But have you considered not engaging in risky behavior?
MERWIN: Standing by
PATIENCE: I mean as a proactive choice.
JERRY (counselor): Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
CHEN CHEN (caller): You are the ice cream sandwich connoisseur of your generation.
JERRY: Glad to have a skill I can fall back on.
Happy Midsummer and happy Pride Month!
Read the rest of “Summer” by Chen Chen here.
KIM (counselor): Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
SJOHNNA MCCRAY: Rage is the language of men.
KIM: Let me see if I can find you a translator.
LUTHER (anger translator): Luther here. What the @#!? is your problem?
In celebration of both Father’s Day and Juneteenth this Sunday. Click here to read “Portrait of My Father as a Young Black Man” by Sjohnna McCray
Poetry Crisis Valentines 2022
Alexander Pope
Violets are blue,
roses are red,
let us rush in
where angels won’t tread.
Jenny Joseph
Roses are red,
violets are blue.
When I’m an old woman
I’ll dress like that too.
Elizabeth Bishop
Roses are found
on vines interlacing.
It’s not hard to master
the art of misplacing.
Gregory Corso
Exlposives are deadly,
violence is loud.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Can I get you a shroud?
Mark Strand
Roses are red,
violets are blue,
air is an obstacle
that we walk through.
Alberto Rios
Roses are red,
violets are blue,
the border is what
separates me from you.
James W. Hall
Woses aww wed,
but what makes me blue
is I’m SPIDERMAN.
Aww you SPIDERMAN too?
Maya Angelou
Roses are red,
violets are blue,
still I rise. Can I get
a rise out of you?
ROBERT BENCHLEY (counselor): Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?
DOROTHY PARKER (caller): You come right over here and
BENCHLEY: We don’t do house calls.
PARKER: Explain
BENCHLEY: I can’t go there, but I can send an emergency poet–or the grammar police.
PARKER: Why they are having another year.
BENCHLEY: Would you rather be stuck in the previous one?
[from a telegram Dorothy Parker sent to Robert Benchley on December 31, 1929]