Seamus Heaney calls the Poetry Crisis Line

COUNSELOR: Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?

CALLER: Cloudburst and steady downpour now

COUNSELOR: So you’re calling to talk about the weather?

CALLER: for days.

COUNSELOR: Right. If you want to talk to days, I may need to transfer you to another counselor when my shift ends.

CALLER: Still mammal,

COUNSELOR: That’s correct. I don’t think we have any birds or reptiles working today.

CALLER: straw-footed on the mud,

COUNSELOR: I don’t know what shoes the other counselor will be wearing.

CALLER: he begins to sense the weather / by his skin.

COUNSELOR: Um, yes. If you go out in the rain, your skin will feel it.

CALLER: A nimble snout of flood

COUNSELOR: So there’s rain up your nose?

CALLER: licks over stepping-stones

COUNSELOR: So you’ve got a dog out in the rain? They love that.

CALLER: and goes uprooting.

COUNSELOR: So you need to get him out of your garden. Do you have any dog treats?

CALLER: He fords

COUNSELOR: No—you want him out of the garden, but don’t encourage him to chase cars.

CALLER: his life by

COUNSELOR: Yeah, it could risk his life. Can you call him? What’s his name?

CALLER: sounding.

COUNSELOR: You mean Sounder? Like in the book?

CALLER: Soundings.

COUNSELOR: That’s a strange name for a dog, but OK.

 

From “Gifts of Rain” by Seamus Heaney

From the all-female adaptation of The Hobbit

BILBELLE: What have I got in my pockets?

GOLLUMME: It has pocketses?

BILBELLE: Yes, but what is inside?

GOLLUMME: We wants the pocketses! GIVE US THE POCKETSES!

BILBELLE: Uh, they’re attached.

GOLLUMME: WE WILL SKIN IT AND TAKE ITS POCKETSES!

BILBELLE: I mean they’re attached to my pants. I can give you my waistcoat.

GOLLUMME: It has pocketses?

BILBELLE: Yes, it has pocketses. Um, I mean pockets.

GOLLUMME: My precious.

Mark Antony calls the Poetry Crisis Line

COUNSELOR: Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?

CALLER: I am dying,

COUNSELOR: Can I send an ambulance? Where are you calling from?

CALLER: Egypt,

COUNSELOR: Egypt? What are you doing there?

CALLER: dying;

COUNSELOR: Right. Is there something I can do for you?

CALLER: Give me some wine,

COUNSELOR: I thought you were in Egypt?

CALLER: and

COUNSELOR: You’re somewhere else as well?

CALLER: let me speak a little.

COUNSELOR: Right, you’re the dying guy. I’ll shut up now.

Charles Bukowski re-calls the Poetry Crisis Line

COUNSELOR: Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?

CALLER: there’s a bluebird in my heart that / wants to get out

COUNSELOR: Literally? Or is that a metaphor? Or, like, a simile?

CALLER: but I’m too tough for him,

COUNSELOR: It’s OK. You can admit if your heart is fluttering.

CALLER: I say, stay in there,

COUNSELOR: So you recognize that you want him there?

CALLER: I’m not going / to let anybody see / you.

COUNSELOR: So you’ve made a birdhouse in your soul, but it’s on the down-low?

 

Read the rest of “bluebird” by Charles Bukowski here.

Excerpt From Monty Python and the Club of Fights

TYLER: The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.

ENGLISH PEASANT: Oi, you just did it there.

TYLER: Did what?

ENGLISH PEASANT: Talked about Fight Club.

TYLER: No I didn’t.

ENGLISH PEASANT: Yes you did. You said “The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.” That sounds like talking about it to me.

TYLER: You can talk about it when you’re there.

ENGLISH PEASANT: You didn’t say that.

TYLER: What?

ENGLISH PEASANT: You said, “The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club.” You can’t carve out an exception after the fact. Unless you want to make that the second rule.

TYLER: The second rule?

ENGLISH PEASANT: Well, yes, you could throw in a second rule, beginning with some hoity-toity language like, “Exceptions to the first rule shall include…” or some such.

TYLER: But there already is a second rule.

ENGLISH PEASANT: Are you sure?

TYLER: Yes.

ENGLISH PEASANT: You’re not just making it up to sound clever, are you?

TYLER: No.

ENGLISH PEASANT: Well, let’s have it then.

TYLER: What?

ENGLISH PEASANT: The second rule. What is it?

TYLER: The second rule of Fight club is you do not talk about Fight Club.

ENGLISH PEASANT: Oi, now ’e’s just repeating ’imself. I knew you were making it up.

John Dryden calls the Poetry Crisis Line

COUNSELOR: Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?

CALLER: Why should a foolish marriage vow, / Which long ago was made, / Oblige us to each other now / When passion is decay’d?

COUNSELOR: Good question. Are there children?

CALLER: We lov’d, and we lov’d, as long as we could, / Till our love was lov’d out in us both:

COUNSELOR: Sounds like you tried but couldn’t conceive. Is there joint property?

CALLER: But our marriage is dead, when the pleasure is fled:

COUNSELOR: I see. Have you discussed this with your spouse?

CALLER: ‘Twas pleasure first made it an oath.

COUNSELOR: So maybe just try something new.

CALLER: If I have pleasures for a friend,

COUNSELOR: Uh, I said something new, not someone new. Unless your spouse is also into that.

CALLER: And farther love in store,

COUNSELOR: It certainly sounds like you’re into that.

CALLER: What wrong has he whose joys did end,

COUNSELOR: That is a matter for you and your spouse to discuss openly, before it builds deeper resentment and…

CALLER: And who could give no more?

COUNSELOR: …and you’re already talking about alimony.

 

 

Read the original here

James Baldwin calls the Poetry Crisis Line

 

COUNSELOR: Poetry Crisis Line, what is your emergency?

CALLER: This flag has been planted on the moon:

COUNSELOR: It has? And how did you end up with it?

CALLER: it will be interesting to see

COUNSELOR: You don’t know?

CALLER: what steps the moon will take to be revenged

COUNSELOR: On the Commander of Cheese?

CALLER: for this quite breathtaking presumption.

COUNSELOR: Ironic—to be breathtaking on the moon.

 

James Baldwin, born August 2, 1924, would have been 94 today. Read the rest of the poem Staggerlee Wonders here. (Note: poem contains offensive language and some controversial ideas.)