[Bill Carpenter]

Really an excellent book. George Green is a delightful metrist, comic and journalist of the age. A non-member but far from unknown. Congratulations to him on the prize!

The foot poem follows one of Nemo Hill's strictures on satire. Mock thyself.

[Terese Coe]

But the very best of George Green, for all his genius as a thinker and writer, is to hear him live. His delivery is impeccable. It's a great deal funnier from the stage than on the page. I could say why but I don't want to ruin it for anyone. Just hear him live!

And I don't think "Lord Byron's Foot" is even the funniest or darkest of the poems in the book. Buy the book! I did, and now I can't find it.

[dean peterson]

Funny/odd to find this thread here today as I'd read only this morning an excellent essay posted at the Poetry Foundation website on this very book, by Austin Allen, titled Rumors of the Stars.

[Tim McGrath]

Dean Peterson: I migrated here from the same site, just a few short clicks away.

Terese Coe and Bill Carpenter: I'm sure that Green can vex with mirth the drowsy ear of night.

Chris O'Carroll: Fix your gaze on Emily Dickinson, a ten foot poet among inchlings.

[Mark Mansfield]

Good for you, Mr. Tice (and Mr. McGrath), for speaking the truth – you’re not “the bad guy” at all. Quite the opposite, sir. “Lord Byron’s Foot” is about as amusing as one of Jerry Lewis's "funny" routines, at the cruel expense of those with disabilities. What is funny, a regular laff riot in fact, are the various defenses of "Lord Byron's Foot" proffered in this thread:

(“Byron is so clearly a genius that focusing on his foot is comically absurd. It's like focusing on Einstein's mustache [sic].” Really, I didn’t realize that Mr. Einstein’s moustache was a congenital deformity, particularly one that could not be treated in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.) (“This [“Lord Byron’s Foot”] is cathartic for all involved, not mean-spirited at all.” “for all involved”? Funny, I don’t recall reading where George Gordon Byron said this POS was “cathartic” for him.) (Or my favorite: “[i]t [“Lord Byron’s Foot”] pokes savage fun at the narrator's inappropriate obsession.” Ah, yes, it’s the narrator whom the poet is poking “savage fun” at!, not Lord Byron suffering his whole life long from having a clubfoot – that has nothing to do with anything. Please be mindful that it’s the poem’s narrator who is the butt of Mr. Green’s déclassé thrashing about, not Lord Byron. In fact, since it IS the narrator who’s the butt of Mr. Green’s cheap shots, we could erase any references whatsoever to Lord Byron’s club foot from Mr. Green’s verse. Right?) (“Byron, who was extremely handsome when his weight was under control, was much more obsessed with his lame foot than anybody else was.” Uh huh, since Bryon was handsome and kept his weight down (which has what to do with what?), and he was obsessed with his lame foot, that makes it hunky dory for some cut-rate schadenfreude addict to dash off a few stanzas of doggerel making fun of that alleged obsession? Except for one little detail – Byron was embarrassed and humiliated by his congenital deformity, and from that arose any putative obsession with it – all the more reason that anyone evincing the slightest sensitivity and compassion about such, would not be jumping and climbing all over other cruel-is-cool, pom pom girls and boys to champion some drivel, wholly focused upon taking cheap shots at that dead writer’s handicap. Bryon’s obsession with his handicap is understandable; Mr. Green’s narrator’s obsession with Lord Byron’s handicap is gratuitously cruel – a subtle distinction, I realize, but one most adults as well as many children are capable of grasping.)

Perhaps, since Mr. Green’s poem is ever so “ironic” and “tongue-in-cheek,” Mr. Lewis's routines at the expense of the disabled were ever-so ironic and tongue-in-cheek as well. Or presumably every time some younger version of Mr. Green out on a playground at recess mimics a classmate who's disabled for his other classmates’ dysfunctional viewing and listening pleasure, that's probably to be taken as ironic, too. Sure thing.

(Here’s some irony for you: I have happened to catch Mr. Green reading, and if someone were so inclined, he or she might dash off a bit of doggie-pooh doggerel in the manner of Mr. Green's "Lord Byron's Foot" -- having an “ironic” field day at the expense of one of Mr. Green's vocal, shall we say?? quirks. Schadenfreude -- the gift that keeps on giving.)

[Gregory Dowling]

Well, talking of obsessiveness (as we were, seven months ago)...

[Rick Mullin]

Keep in mind that, also like Jerry Lewis, George Green has been hosting an annual telethon for decades.

[Julie Steiner]

Humor's a very subjective thing. There are plenty of things that other people find hilarious, that I find hurtful or offensive. (And, sadly, vice versa.)

[Egotisitical blather deleted]

May we all manage to surround ourselves with people who appreciate and share our particular brand of humor, whatever it may be.

Happy holidays to all.

[William A. Baurle]

Originally Posted by Allen Tice

Time to be the bad guy again. I have nothing at all against Mr. Green. I've been at a bar restaurant at a table that included him with others and we had fun, and I've heard him read this title poem twice in person.

However, each time I was absolutely unable to understand why he was so focused on a man's physical deformity. It's not like Byron could change his body. I hesitate to say what I thought of this poem. But I reject it. Not funny. Sorry.

Agreed. I can't quite understand the humor or interest in the poem.

[Quincy Lehr]

It's one of those things one kind of gets or doesn't as far as personal enjoyment, but just because I never listen to bebop for pleasure and find jazzhole culture more than mildly reprehensible doesn't mean that John Coltrane wasn't a bit of a genius. That said, some of the... ahem... vehemence of the anti- crowd seems a bit much. Granted, George is a friend, but he's not some overhyped dip$#!t, but rather a guy who really has paid his dues.