[Tim Murphy]

I've been meaning to discuss this with Carol, Roger, Jim, David, etc., for some time. Landing the fall issue, 2002 of Light, was quite a coup for us, but looking back, I find many of the poems are pretty lame, lacking charge, inferior to the jokes they tell. For instance, if I were to do a book, I would strike the two Norwegian jokes I told and The Stock Boy. I would substitute two new poems, The Prayer:

The Prayer

Murphy carries a pint uncracked
and hidden at his hip
but falls in the lane. His backside smacked,
he contemplates his slip.

“Mither o’ God, tis been some time
since Ireland had a quake,”
observing with impromptu rhyme,
“Mark how the streetlamps shake!”

As though he shoulders a Guiness keg
he staggers up from the mud,
but something wet runs down his leg.
"Dear God, let it be blood!"

and The Great Moorhead Fire, both of which John Mella has subsequently published:

The Great Moorhead Fire

Joe Kippels ran a department store
outclassed by James Cash Penney,
and old Joe could have torn his hair
except he hadn’t any.

Bill Kenney milked the Silver Moon
for seventy cents a pour.
As Main Street filled with smoke one noon,
a drunkard at his door

cried “Kippels’ store is burning down!”
Never a man to borrow,
Kenney said with a puzzled frown
“I thought that was tomorrow.”

In response to Hugh Clary's expressed concern on Carol's current Passing Memory thread, they're true stories, original to my family and its experience, and they're just better written and funnier than those lame Norwegian jokes. Which Wilbur acknowledged when he recanted his savage criticism of our project and told me these made it all worthwhile. Colleagues, we've had eighteen months to think about this and get some distance on it. I challenge all of you to revise, rework, and resubmit, or write anew. Many of our poems stand the test of time for me, Carol's poem about Sherlock, Jim's about the Octopus, John's about the Regimental Rubber, Wakefield's about the bear and pepper spray. David's cat on the roof. Roger's Shit, I Missed. But it's been a long time. A third of the work, some of the best, came in after the Light cut-off. I'd like every poet to take a fresh look at his jokes, and this time, let's make a book. Let's shoot for fifty to eighty pages and be Deep Endy in critiquing one another's work. We HAVE a book here, but it can be a great deal better than what appeared in Light. We'll do it here at Gen'l Talk and leave the Lariat board to Clive and our non-met members. yr lariat.

[Jim Hayes]

There are no new Jokes. Inventing a new joke is like inventing a new sin, it's too late. All we can do, and do well is dress them up anew , find the forgotten ones and bring them to the light again. In our own, inimitable versified manner.

A noble calling.

Timmo, I'll post one tomorrow.

[Carol Taylor]

Tim, your Stockboy joke is one of my favorites. And I agree with Jim--even if I (or Hugh Clary) invented a new joke, ten posters would have already heard it. And if both are original, what's the difference between light verse and a versified joke?

Carol

[Tim Murphy]

Carol, Jamie, I leave for Florida for two weeks on Friday, and I shall take the Light MS with me. Alan and I will have the wireless laptop aboard, and let's really get after this. I only mentioned half a dozen of the poems, but hell! there are half a dozen by Hayes alone that rise above the level of verse, and a dozen more Hayes to be had. I know what's wrong with the Stock Boy, and I'll get off my skinny ass and fix it. Jamie, some of those things of yours I rewrote in fifteen minutes, and we let it go at that. Good enough for John. But let's dig deep here, dear colleagues. If we are to publish the first book of work (or play?) from the Sphere, it better be top shelf.

[Carol Taylor]

Tim, we might as well get an updated version of the entire ms for you to take with you rather than just the ones that fit into our Light allocation (54 pages, wasn't it?). Do you need me to send you the last version of the ms, or should we add to it first? I know there are some Volume 2 submissions we might use that were never compiled, and we could probably get more. We could assemble more than we need, cut the ones we think weakest, and then let the editor (if we get one) pare us back to book size by throwing out all the ones we love and he doesn't.

Carol

[Tim Murphy]

Stock Boy, revisited:

The Stock Boy

A young boy at the produce shelf was wrapping a lettuce head.
“I’ll have half a head of lettuce,” a white-haired gentleman said.
The boy said: “Mister, we have no halves. We sell ‘em as they’re grown.”
“I cannot consume a lettuce, lad. Alas, I live alone.”
The boy burst through the swinging doors and said “A doddering crock
wants half a head of lettuce, and we keep no halves in stock…”
But seeing the old man at his heels, the lad said with a laugh:
“And this distinguished gentleman will purchase the other half.”

The manager watched the old man, happy to make his buy,
and told the boy, “Good work, young man. Very quick thinking. I
shall send you off to Toronto to supervise our stores.”
The boy cried “Who would want to live with hockey players and whores?”
“My wife is from Toronto! Wash your mouth! Watch what you say!”
Smiling, the boy said “Really? What position did she play?”

and as it appeared in Light:

The Stock Boy

A young boy at the produce shelf was wrapping a lettuce head.
“I’ll have half a head of lettuce,” a white-haired gentleman said.
The lad: “Mister they’re ain’t no halves. We sell ‘em as they’re grown.”
“I cannot eat a lettuce, lad. Alas, I live alone.”
The boy burst through the swinging door and said “A doddering crock
wants half a head of lettuce, and he’s half-dead by the clock…”
But seeing the old man at his heels, the lad said with a laugh:
“And this distinguished gentleman fancies the other half.”

The manager watched the old man, departing with his buy,
and told the boy, “Good work, my lad. Very quick thinking. I
might send you to Toronto to supervise some stores.”
The boy cried “Who would want to live with hockey players and whores?”
“My wife is from Toronto! Wash your mouth! Watch what you say!”
Smiling, the boy said “Really? What position did she play?”

This is an example of the sort of sloppiness that characterized my efforts for Mella. The revision has a way to go (Florida!), but this is the spirit in which I think we must approach our earlier drafts.

[alvaro.alarcon]

Tim, very fun poems to read. Reading the poetry on this site by (mainly) Deep Enders is a pleasure for me.

Alvaro

[Carol Taylor]

Tim, I prefer the Light version, metrically and diction-wise. The only part that needs changing is "Wash your mouth!" which isn't something a manager would say to an employee, but that still needs changing in the revision. And there's a typo on "they're." Did that really get by you, me, and John Mella and make it into the published edition, or are you looking at an old ms?

I've made a few changes to some of mine, too, for example "Going Out in Style" which I updated for the chapbook.

Carol

[Fred Longworth]

The Secret to Being a Sensitive Guy


"Cut off your right testicle," she demanded.

Not to displease her,
I sliced it off with a kitchen knife
and cauterized the stump with an electric iron.

"Cut off your left testicle," she demanded.

I snipped it away
with a pair of garden shears
and stuck it in an olive jar.

"Good," she said.

Then she stripped naked,
stood in front of me, hungry as a piranha.

"Ravage me," she demanded.

"Let's play Scrabble," I said.

[Jim Hayes]

I don't suppose this could be accused of lacking a cutting
edge but it's more a commentary on castration phobia than a joke per se.

In that light it's quite effective, but would I laugh at it? The answer is a resounding no. Which, although it may admit of a deep rooted paranoia in my case, still confirms that I don't recognise it as a joke.

Jim