[Catherine Tufariello]

I laughed out loud when I read this poem. Anyone who had read Hamlet might see the humor in that tv listing; but who except Sam Gwynn could make reading it the occasion for such an apt and funny poem? (So often my response to his poems is an admiring and envious, "Now why didn't I think of that?") It's the sort of thing he is best at: drawing on both canonical literary sources and pop cultural ones in his poems. Another example is the brilliant and fiercely satiric "Among Philistines," which gives the story of Samson a contemporary setting.

[Solan]

Would this work if the listing consisted of lesser plays that the bard's?

Cartooned sonnet

"I thought I thaw a putthycat!" says bird.
"What's up doc?" asks a carrot-chewing rabbit.
"Meep! Meep!" Coyote chases bird who's blurred.
He's white and black and loving is his habit.

Four freaks, a dog, in chase of ghosts.
A steamboat where the captain is a mouse.
A sailor-clad and flightless duck who boasts.
Grey cat. Brown mouse. Wild chases in the house.

Green-clad boy was leader ever since.
Lady eats spaghetti with a tramp.
Beauty's love turn beast into a prince.
Guy saves the princess with a magic lamp.

Seven guard her from the wicked queen.
Jungle boy leaves bear in final scene.


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Svein Olav

[Jim Hayes]

Of course you can do it Svein, but isn't it illuminating how the resulting comparison confirms the competence of the Master?

Jim

[Tim Murphy]

I think both Chris and Svein have done pretty well. Of course, it's something that should be done only once. My reaction when Sam emailed this to me a couple of years ago was just like Catherine's, and not unlike my reaction to Wendy Cope's brilliant Wasteland Limericks. "Why didn't I think of that?"

[Jim Hayes]

Yes, being first does indeed have a certain cachet.

I didn't mean that your poem was without merit Svein, and I know that you didn't post for critique, which is a pity, if you post to Deep End or Metrical, I for one would be happy to comment further;

Jim

[Solan]

It is, as Tim said, a case of getting the idea first. For us who came second - seconds trying to emulate the first, no less - working on these poems might be good exercises, but maybe a bit uninspiring to the critics since they are mere seconds.

I wouldn't take offense at a PM, though.


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Svein Olav

[nyctom]

Dear Mr. Davis:

Thank you for your response to my questions. And welcome to what you have already probably discovered is the often wacky world of Eratosphere. Hope you enjoy your stay.

Best regards--
Tom

[Nigel Holt]

Personally, I thought it was a good intellectual exercise, but not good poetry. It's redolent of the exercises English teachers use to teach paraphrase with poetry, to aid comprehension of the poem's main theme(s).

'Old Statue Litters Desert'

I also agree with Tom that this is a poem of fourteen stanzas, not a sonnet.

Nigel

[Jan D. Hodge]

I too have enjoyed this for some time, and still smile on rereading it. But (even recognizing that this is not "Deep End") I always falter at l.4, as did Roger. Why not:

....Two couples lose their way on a summer night?

The (slight) variation with the anapest seems appropriate anyway.

Jan

[This message has been edited by Jan D. Hodge (edited May 02, 2002).]

[epigone]

Sam Gwynn's sonnet exemplifies a technique that he has mastered whereby he builds a beautiful and comic poem out of some arresting scrap or scraps of language. I am thinking also of his (forgive me if I haven't got the titles quite right) "Ballade Beginning with a Line from Robert Bly" and to some extent of "Approaching a Significant Birthday He Peruses the Norton Anthology of Poetry."

Having seen Sam read, I known that he is not Walter Benjamin. Nonetheless, I see certain similarities in these found poems (for lack of a better term) and Benjamin's Passagenwerk. While Benjamin's project was historical or archaeological, his instinct was I believe the same as Sam's -- to piece together scraps of the culture we inhabit in order to create some restatement of or comment on that culture.

More generally, what I find so charming in these poems is that they play on a basic component of modernist and post-modern sensibilities, in which the artist is confronted by both the weight of the cultural tradition and the random urgencies of everyday life.

Can forum participants recommend other poets who construct poems as Sam has done, or is he the inventor and sole practitioner of this technique?