[James Brancheau]

It's a dreadful poem. The Holocaust close, my god.

I don't think it's a good idea to try to like anyone's poem. Not really the workshop spirit, whaddaythink?

[Roger Slater]

I disagree. Ideally, I think we should try to like every poem we read rather than to approach it with a cynical, this-will-probably-stink attitude. I can never find the essay, but I'm sure I read something by Roethke in which he said something very much like that. Part of the problem with workshop reactions is that we read with the idea that the poem is imperfect, or it wouldn't be posted, and we read with the sense that we are reading a work in progress rather than a finished product.

[Julie Steiner]

Originally Posted by Michael Cantor

I'm not sure, Julie. It's a strong L14, perhaps, but there are few good rhymes.

Oh, you and your monorhymed sonnets. I still think you could do something along the lines of

...a whippersnapping, fiercely yapping pup
offended by linguistic sins like "schtupp"...

but not if your heart isn't in it.

[R. Nemo Hill]

"The poem sucks," about sums it up for me.

Nemo

[R. S. Gwynn]

I didn't post the poem to have it workshopped, just to ask how "edgy" it is. I think Mike's close to my feelings about it; you have to be of an age and either Jewish or Irish to connect with it fully. Because I am neither, I find it edgy in the sense that, taken as a whole, it makes me cringe a little, thinking, "Maybe you shouldn't do this." But, on the other hand, maybe we, or somebody, should do this. I don't know. The one thing I took away from Citizen is that I, as a poet, have no language to write about racial differences, but even admitting that shows a lack of nerve, a failure of "privilege." It adds up to keeping silent about something that matters.

[Michael F]

I completely agree with Sam that we can and should discuss such issues. Here's a treatment from "Avenue Q" that I love.

Lots of great and very funny numbers in this show -- search also "It Sucks to Be Me" and "If You Were Gay", if you haven't seen it.

[Michael Cantor]

But Julie, "shtupp" doesn't rhyme with "pup" (this is what happens when you let shiksas write in Yiddish - what's next - they'll want to make gefilte fish?). "Pup" has a nice, big, round slobbery vowel; but the "u" sound in "shtupp" is barely there - it's like the "ou" in "could" or the "oo" in "hood".

[AZ Foreman]

I'm a 20-something and I think it's an imperfect poem but I do get it and found it enjoyable. At least on first reading. It runs along the edge of cringe-inducing, true. I very much doubt Julie's implication that Jews weren't among the intended audience. Though it reads in certain ways as if it were written in a time-warp by someone from the 70s or 60s or even 50s, with a somewhat different sensibility. I had shared this with friends before Michael informed me that there had even been a curfuffle about it. But it's the sort of thing I don't think is likely to age well in today's America. People have begun to think of groupishness in different terms, and the language and trappings of ascriptive identity have taken on a different character, and certain symbols have been invested with a greater resonance.

[Andrew Mandelbaum]

Your Honor,
For my part, I see the bruising on the poem caused by "an older way of looking at ethnicity" but we submit that the victim died from deep lacerations totally unrelated to any politically correct follies of today's youth. You will notice the coroner's report clearly says the cause of death was suckage. Any tasteless Jew-ing wounds found on the body were likely caused by attempts to keep the victim alive and avoid a murder charge. I find the defense teams strategy of linking this case to the Trilling murder to be brilliant good-old-days theater but, in end, not convincing.