Poetry Crisis Valentines 2021

This year’s Poetry Crisis Valentines:

ALLEN GINSBERG
Roses are red,
Mushrooms are crude.
I saw your great mind
starving, mad, nude.

ADRIENNE RICH
Roses are red,
violets are blue;
This is the oppressor’s language,
but I need it with you.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Some roses are red,
Some roses are pink;
We’re surrounded by water
With nothing to drink.

GWENDOLYN BROOKS
Roses are fed
by insects and worms.
Does Man love Art?
Man visits, but squirms.

WILLIAM BLAKE
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
I told not my Love
& how my Love grew!

Roses are dead,
Violets are through.
I told you my love.
I no longer love you.

ALEXANDER POPE
Roses are red,
Shakespear’s a hack.
The hair on your head
Is under attack!

AMANDA GORMAN
Roses are red,
violets are blue.
Competent leadership
should not seem so new!

Click here to see Poetry Crisis Valentines from past years.

 

Ken Cuccinelli rewrites more classic poems

The Poetry Crisis Line tries to stay out of politics, but sometimes politicians won’t stay out of poetry. So after Ken Cuccinelli, Acting Director of US Citizenship and Immigration Services, suggested corrections to “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus (aka, the “Statue of Liberty Poem”), we asked Mr. Cuccinelli if there were any other classic poems he’d like to rewrite. He gave us the following:

 

Emma Lazarus*

Give me your tired, your poor who can stand on their own two feet
and who will not become a public charge.

William Carlos Williams†

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

because
they coud not
pay for
their housing

Forgive me
they were lazy
and after
my job

 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Water, water everywhere
But not a drop to drink
Unless you can afford to pay
For access to the sink

 

William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright
In the forest of the night,
If you come here to the States,
You’d better sell some Frosted Flakes.

 

____

*Mr Cuccinelli’s suggested revision.

†We made the rest of these up.

The Queen of Cheese Presents: The Tygger

Tygger! Tygger! Bouncing high,

Bumping Hundred Acre Sky,

What intrepid toymaker

Did Stytch thy Joyntes & Stuff thy Furr?

 

And what Rubber, & what Sprynggs

Formed thy soft Internal Things?

When thy legs began to Pogo,

Whence thy Get-Up? Whence thy Go-Go?

 

Does thy Boundless energy

Bounce out? Or is it Bound to thee?

When thou Bounced the Baby Roo

Into the pond, didst thou splash, too?

 

Who did place thy fluff-stuffed head

In a sleeping child’s bed?

While he sleepest, might thou Pounce?

Who can sleep while Tyggers Bounce?

 

And in all thy wondrous fun,

Art thou indeed the only one?

Frame thy playful symmetry:

Did he who made the Pooh make thee?

 

Tygger! Tygger! Bouncing high,

Bumping Hundred Acre Sky–

Softly doth the Bear reply,

Cottleston, Cotlleston, Cottleston pie.

William Blake calls the Poetry Crisis Line

COUNSELOR     Poetry Crisis Line. What is your emergency?

CALLER:      Tyger!

COUNSELOR:      I’m sorry, did you say–

CALLER:      Tyger!

COUNSELOR:      Yes, I suppose you did. Are you sure? Do you have the lights on?

CALLER:      Burning bright.

COUNSELOR:      And where are you?

CALLER:      In the forest of the night.

COUNSELOR:      Is that near Hell’s Kitchen?

CALLER:      What

COUNSELOR:      Never mind. How do you feel at the moment?

CALLER:      Immortal

COUNSELOR:      That’s good. They can smell fear. I’m not sure if that’s synesthesia or a mixed metaphor, but they can. Is there something you can give the animal to distract him?

CALLER:      Hand

COUNSELOR:      Maybe something you don’t need as much.

CALLER:      or eye

COUNSELOR:      I was thinking something that isn’t, you know, attached. Do you think maybe you could…uh…could–

CALLER:      Could frame thy fearsome symmetry

COUNSELOR:      Actually, I’m kind of lopsided. Makes it hard to shop for bras.