Philocrites

'Poetry' laugh attack.

by Philocrites

The July issue of Poetry (update: now online!) has the Philocrites household in stitches. Yes, it's the Humor Issue, well worth an English major's hard-earned $3.75. The best bit so far is Joan Murray's "We Old Dudes," which takes Gwendolyn Brooks's "We Real Cool" out to the suburban country club. In deference to the copyright laws, I hesitate to quote the whole poem — but here's the beginning:

We old dudes. We
White shoes. We

Golf ball. We
Eat mall. . . . (299)

Oh, my sides! (There's a blue-state cultural sneer in the final stanza that will give academic culture warriors a cheap thrill.) If you're in the bookstore looking for this issue of Poetry, it's the one that misspells the name of the magazine in bright red letters: Peotry. The Contributors pages are very funny, too. And Albert Goldbarth contributes two lines in a limerick stanza worth pondering: "The world is cell-phoney / With bloggish baloney" (323). As litterateur Glenn Reynolds might say, Indeed.

Copyright © 2006 by Philocrites | Posted 28 June 2006 at 8:10 PM

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