VRZHU bullets of pure love

George Carlin (May, 1937 - June 22, 2008)

I'm not sure why a small tribute to George Carlin is appropriate, but it seems so. Perhaps his attention and examination of the thoughtlessness of much of our speech or its social (mis)function touches on the concerns of poetry. He certainly seemed to care about words in the world much the way a poet might.

“I grew up in New York wanting to be like those funny men in the movies and on the radio. My grandfather, mother and father were gifted verbally, and my mother passed that along to me. She always made sure I was conscious of language and words.”

Anyway, I'm sure that last thing GC would want to do is "rest in peace." Give 'em hell, George.

Warning: contains adult language and attitudes:

Saturday Vrzhu Concertette

Presenting:

tuesday abbreviated post

A bit short today, folks.  Fighting off a ridiculous cold, coughing like a lawn mower trying to start, having to use a spatula rather than a tissue. And our bathroom ceiling downstairs fell, moving in less than a second from eponymous ceiling to floor. I'm done shoveling it out the door (2 layers! Drywall and plaster!), but some serious wipedown is in order. There's more, but suffice to say Joe Btfsplk was in the neighborhood. Bright spot: Thanks to fellow Vrzhu Dan Vera for some life-saving coffee delivery.

With that in mind enjoy the following panels courtesy of Wondermark by the brilliant David Malki.  Please visit his site HERE and buy everything.

      

More:

Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams
Kenneth Koch

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!

Still more:

1
I have forgiven
the breakfast
that was in
you

and which
the icebox was
probably saving
for plums.

Eat me,
sweet so and so,
you are delicious
and cold.

2
I have broken
the delicious ice
which ate them
cold

in the plumbing
box of sweet
forgiveness.

Save me,
You are
so fast
and so probable.

3
I have plumbed
the Probable,
that so delicious
box

and you were ice,
and saving the
sweet breakfast

for which—
so scold me!—
they were in.

Ednafication

A few weeks back we posted the idea of commemorating Spring and the iconic photograph of Edna St. Vincent Millay in a blooming tree.  Seemed like a zany but noble idea to bring poets together to recreate this charming image.

We are happy to report that the two Saturday photo sessions at the magnificent Brookland Dogwood tree was a rousing success.

A great number of poets and writers showed up both days and took their Millayesque portraits.  On the fine suggestion of Kim Roberts folks brought picnic items last Saturday and a great little Spring soiree took place under treeshade. 

Appropriately, Terrance Mulligan and Martha Sanchez-Lowery brought some of Millay's poems to be read aloud.  Terry read Millay's poem about Spring (titled "Spring") which clearly shows the bard of Camden, Maine wasn't that crazy about the season.

Spring

To what purpose, April, do you return again?
Beauty is not enough.
You can no longer quiet me with the redness
Of little leaves opening stickily.
I know what I know.
The sun is hot on my neck as I observe
The spikes of the crocus.
The smell of the earth is good.
It is apparent that there is no death.
But what does that signify?
Not only under ground are the brains of men
Eaten by maggots.
Life in itself
Is nothing,
An empty cup, a flight of uncarpeted stairs.
It is not enough that yearly, down this hill,
April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.

We also passed Millay's long poem "Renascence" that got her started as a young teenaged writer.  We took turns reading passages aloud under the shade of a nice pine tree adjoining the dogwood. It was an amazing afternoon.

Of course the whole purpose was to take our Ednaesque portraits and we did do that.  To see the portraits and see a list of participating Ednas, please visit the Project Millay page on the main VRZHU Press site at www.vrzhu.com/edna.html

We'd love to receive feedback.  Maybe we can make this an annual event.  Perhaps we can start a tradition for poets to recreate around the country.  Perchance the world.  Any excuse for a picnic, eh?

Leave a comment for the Ednas.

The Millay Project.

Tuesday and the start of two new Vrzhu features!

Our first new feature:

IRON POET! - Recipe vs. Poem – Number 1 in a series

For our first IRON POET! Contest, it’s the classic German street food, Currywurst, in an authentic, translated, recipe versus Robert Frost’s early poem Canis Major. There’s the gong and we’re off!

Currywurst

1 EL olive oil  - 1 bulbs  - 1 box tomatoes, box  - 1/2 apple  - 1/8 L apple vinegar  - 1 tl salt  - 50 g sugar, pepper from the mill  - 2 tl mustard,  - Basilikum  - 3 Currywurst  - 20 g fat  - 600 g Pommes of frites  - Curry

3 portions - 1,058 Kcal per portion

First the home-made Tomatenketchup for the Currywurst is in-cooked. But olive oil omit and the thrown one bulb glassily vapors. Tomatoes with juice add and 1/2 apple (e.g. Boskop) roughly cubes and add. With apple vinegar fill up and with salt, sugar, pepper from the mill, mustard, dried Basilikum and something Curry taste. On middle heat in the open pot simmer leave. Agitate repeatedly. The liquid is to evaporate, so that after approx develops for 45 minutes a dicklicher tomato mash. These by a filter paint and the finished Tomatenketchup possibly again taste. In a large pan and the Currywuerste in approx. omits the fat. 5-8 min. on middle temperature light brown roast. Turn repeatedly. The Currywuerste may not become too dark. Inside they remain pink. Who likes, she cuts afterwards in disks. The Ketchup over it give and with Curry cover. In addition Pommes are enough.

Canis Major

Robert Frost

The great Overdog
That heavenly beast
With a star in one eye
Gives a leap in the east.

He dances upright
All the way to the west
And never once drops
On his forefeet to rest.

I'm a poor underdog,
But to-night I will bark
With the great Overdog
That romps through the dark.

Vote for your choice in the comments section.

For those of you unfamiliar with currywurst, here’s a short overview. I was going to include an American version of the recipe, but decided against it.  Let me know if you want it.

Currywurst is the paradigmatic blue-collar lunch in Germany, available in every Frittenbude, and synonymous with blue collar workers in the Ruhr area. The list of ingredients may seem shudder-inducing, but the result is quite tasty. Some Schnell-Imbisse make their own currywurst sauce -- a curry powder–flavored ketchup -- but essentially it’s not a high-falutin’ thing.

A few miscellaneous things before our next event

You may or may not know that Bob Dylan has been doing a show on XM radio, called The Theme Time Radio Hour, which resurrects the old idea, from back in the days of pre-media-conglomerate, pre-deregulation FM radio, of using leitmotivs to tie radio sets together, as well as the idea that the DJ can have a discernible non-corporate personality, reflect that in her choices, and craft an arc and art into what goes out over the radio waves.  For those of you who missed that era, it was astonishing and enlightening, and it misses you too.

At the end of a recent Theme Time Radio Hour, on the theme of Lock and Key, Mr. Dylan wound it up by reading this quote from Walt Whitman, a quick comment on Walt, and signing out:

"At the last, tenderly,

From the walls of the powerful fortress’d house,
From the clasp of the knitted locks, from the keep of the well-closed doors,
Let me be wafted.
Let me glide noiselessly forth;
With the key of softness unlock the locks –- with a whisper,
Set open the doors O soul.

Tenderly –- be not impatient,
(Strong is your hold, O mortal flesh,
Strong is your hold O love.)

Walt Whitman, safecracker of the soul. See you next week."

By the way, the title of Galway Kinnell's latest collection is Strong Is Your Hold.

Here's some interesting Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the brain using literal vs metaphoric language. This is of course particular exciting to our data-hungry sensibility. And here's another, broader MRI-based study of creativity.

Now our other next latest new feature.

The Face-off of the [Last] Century!

Thanks to Jonathan Mayhew and the pshares blog (thanks, Elisa!) for inspiring the idea, which is:

New Poets of England and America versus The New American Poetry 1945 – 1960

A poet by poet, and, to the degree possible, poem by poem comparison of the two anthologies that started the Anthology Wars of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s.

Before we start with the first match, here’s some introductory color commentary: 

Bud: Howard, how do these two anthologies match up?

Howard: Well, New Poets of England and America weighs in at 351 pages. The New American Poetry 1945 – 1960 is packing a hundred pages more than New Poets of England and America, weighing in at 456, so New Poets of England and America is up against a heftier opponent.

Bud: But aren’t 40 of those pages in The New American Poetry 1945 – 1960 statements on poetics?

Howard: That’s right Bud, they are. But even without those, The New American Poetry 1945 – 1960 still outweighs New Poets of England and America by 65 pages. Plus New Poets of England and America came out in 1957 and The New American Poetry 1945 – 1960 in 1960, so The New American Poetry 1945 – 1960 has the advantage of being a little younger, a little faster, and also having seen who New Poets of England and America has on its team, and what kind of juice can be expected from them. New Poets of England and America will have a hard time pulling anything surprising in the ring. It definitely has the uphill battle here.

Bud: Howard, it sounds like you’re leaning towards The New American Poetry 1945 – 1960 to take the title.

Howard: Bud, I don’t have a crystal ball here. It too early to tell and it’s still anybody’s game.

Bud: On another note, Howard, before we get started on the first round, what can you tell from the titles, New Poets of England and America and The New American Poetry 1945 – 1960?

Howard: Bud, it’s a classic mainstream versus innovative match up, although at the time it was framed as academic versus non-academic (Lewis Turco called The New American Poetry 1945 – 1960 a “beat” anthology). New Poets of England and America has poets in its title, emphasizing the individual, the lyric self, and maybe trying for a more immediate connection with a reader, emotional and personal. The New American Poetry 1945 – 1960 uses the word poetry, putting more weight on the shared techniques, community, constraints, and assumptions – in short, schools -- and was hoping to carve out an entirely new kind of poetry over against the centralist poetic concerns found in New Poets of England and America. The New American Poetry 1945 – 1960 may suffer from too much distance from the reader, making engagement difficult or “too difficult.” On the other side, the title New Poets of England and America plays right into the rhetoric about the poems in it being part of a School of Quietude, as defined by Poe and Silliman: poems loyal to the trappings of a conservative poetic tradition inherited from England, and hostile to any new approaches to poetic endeavor.

Bud Wow, Howard, how do you think that’s going to play out?

Howard: Well, the counter-strategy is that New Poets of England and America represents a mid-century rapprochement between the poets of England and the US, a kind of united-by-a-common-language engagement across the Pond.  We’ll have to see if New Poets of England and America can pull that out and use it as strength, and avoid the SoQ attack.

Bud: Sounds like it going to be an exciting face off here.  Howard, there’s a lot of poems in these two anthologies. Any chance of the readers out there getting bored? How will the face off prevent tedium from setting in?

Howard: Bud, we’re professionals. The coverage will do some blow by blow, line by line analysis, but we can zoom out for a broader view, and do summaries too.  We’ll give bottom line results for the less interesting matches and save the big coverage for the big names and particularly interesting face offs. There’s going to be lots of variety and color in this game. That’s why we love it.

Bud: Sounds almost as puerile as real sports coverage, Howard. I’m looking forward to it. Here’s hoping.

Howard: As they say, Bud, hope is a thing with feathers, but then so are pigeons.

Coming up next:  Round One – Kingsley Amis (NPEA) vs. Charles Olson (NAP)

Saturday Vrzhutube

Without further ado, and  by popular demand:

Robert Frost vs. Hungarian Cuisine

Why is Vrzhu blogging a recipe today?

Well, there is precedent. But that is insufficient.

So, by way of justification. . .

“Jay Parini, a Frost scholar and professor at Middlebury College, also described the difficulty of reading Frost’s “chicken scrawlish” handwriting.” 

–from “Editing of Frost Notebooks in Dispute” By Motoko Rich - New York Times, Jan. 22, 2008 

We here at Vrzhu have been puzzling over the reference in the quote above to the traditional Hungarian dish, Chicken Scrawlish.  Perhaps Mr. Parini was giving a tip of the hat to Hungary as one of the great producers of world-class poets, far in excess of larger countries, with a respect for and tradition of poetry comparable to, say, Ireland? Or is he referring to the rumor that, while in England, Frost was able to employ an immigrant Hungarian as a housekeeper for about a month in the fall of 1913, and afterwards Frost would sometimes make a folksy reference to her “chicken scrawlish?.”

This is indeed a riddle inside an enigma wrapped in a flour tortilla. But Vrzhu is in search of a key.

To start, here is an unpublished article from Gourmand Monthly we have obtained which sheds some light on the culinary trompe langue that is Chicken Scrawlish.

Chicken Scrawlish (Chicken Szcralís) – Originally a peasant dish from the Northern Medium Mountain region of northern Hungary, which is part of the Southern Carpathian Mountains of  southwestern Slovakia.  A dense stew that is formed into loaves for the winter, Chicken Scrawlish is undoubtedly the least popular dish in Hungary.  Georgi Mandi, a noted culinary archivist, has said that “if paprikash is considered the royalty of Hungarian cooking, then the concoction known as Chicken Scrawlish must be rated as Hungary’s failed apprentice pig herder. Famed Hungarian chef Egbert Esterhaszy concurs: “To a Hungarian, paprikash, sausage, poppy seed noodles—these all say “mother.” Chicken Scrawlish, on the other hand, says “idiot third cousin kept hidden from company in the root cellar.”

But generally, most Hungarians either deny the existence of a dish called Chicken Scrawlish, or vociferously insist that it is not Hungarian but Slovakian. At the same time Slovak citizens in the Carpathian mountains across the border from Hungary will swear that only a Hungarian would be able to eat a dish like chicken scrawlish. There are local city ordinances still extant stating that “persons found to have a loaf or block of Szcralis on their body or among their belongings will be fined 1,000 korunas.” 

These laws may have been an attempt to discourage “Scrawlishmen.” Because of the difficulties inherent in preparing Chicken Scrawlish, it became common for unemployed men or men who had fallen off their horses onto their heads to become itinerant Chicken Scrawlish vendors, or Scrawlishmen, going from farm to farm and village to village trying to trick the more slatternly wives into buying a jar of potted Scrawlish.  Often runners from one farm would speed ahead to the next farm to warn of the approaching Scrawlishman, so that an adequate supply of stones of sufficient heft could be gathered to throw at him.

Despite this, dedicated, perhaps foolhardy, foodies, inspired by culinary adventurers (such as Anthony Bordain) who sample puffin jerky, or warthog chitterlings, have been looking for a traditional recipe—or any recipe—for the infamous Chicken Scrawlish.

Recently, American investigatory cooks, Jack and Michelle Gurning, have interviewed several immigrants from the region, and found a recipe for the dish hidden in an old bible written in Hungarian. The recipe was on previously-used vellum and sandwiched between pages of the Book of Revelation.  The Gurnings, in their book, Into Thick Soup –  A Personal Account of Delight and Disaster Amongst the Wild Dishes of the Carpathians, provide their deciphered and translated rendition of the recipe.  Their only introductory description of Chicken Scrawlish is “a dish only H. P. Lovecraft could love. Or adequately describe.”

Chicken Scrawlish

One unplucked chicken, preferably dead.
16 oz rendered badger fat
4 oz dry-cured chicken liver
18 oz unhulled groats
2 teaspoons rock salt
2 teaspoons chopped baitfish, such as minnow
6 to 8 cups goat broth, or squirrel broth
1 cup chopped celery root
1 cup chopped sun-dried beet
1 cup chopped kohlrabi, root and leaves.
1/2 cup onion grass
4 oz juniper berries
1 teaspoon hot paprika
1 teaspoon devil’s parsley
¼ cup hyssop sour wine or hyssop white vinegar.
¼ cup woodruff jam

1. First, the chicken must be “saddled.” After gutting the bird, spatchcock it*, retaining the neck and head. Press it flat, pulling to extend the wings and legs as much as possible.

2. Place the spatchcocked chicken between the saddle and the horse, feathered side down (alternatively the chicken may be pressed between two goats).  After a three day ride** remove the chicken and soak in 5 gallons of water mixed with one cup of lye for at least 24 hours, making sure the neck and head of the chicken are draped over the side of the pot to vent properly.

3. Drain, rinse and dry the chicken.  At this point the feathers should have formed a fused  bed underneath the meat. Carefully peel back the feather bed from the chicken and discard some distance from any habitation.  The chicken should be tender and malleable at this point, translucent with a gelatinous consistency.

4. Soak the groats until tender. Soak the dry cured chicken livers until al dente and then grind finely along with the rock salt and chopped baitfish.

5. Drain the groats, put them into a large mixing bowl and add badger fat, celery root, sun-dried beet, kohlrabi, onion grass, juniper berries, hot paprika and devil’s parsley. Stir in the chicken liver mixture. Beat until the mixture is slightly glutinous. Stir in the goat or squirrel broth.

6. Force the chicken through a sieve into the groat mixture, taking care not to put your face or hands directly over the bowl.

7. Cover the bowl with wire mesh and a damp cloth and allow to ferment outside for about 1 hour.

8. Stir and pour into a large dutch oven.  Cook in a 325 degree oven for about 3 hours. If the Scrawlish dries out DO NOT add water! Discard immediately. Either start over or lead a Christian life.***

9. At this point the Chicken Scrawlish can be served as a stew, the so-called White Scrawlish.  It is customarily served on a bed of boiled nettles as a late supper after the men have returned home drunk.   

But typically, much larger amounts of Chicken Scrawlish were made and some of the scrawlish was “put up” in loaves.

For Chicken Scrawlish Loaf, or Black Scrawlish

10. Let the Scrawlish settle and then pour off as much of the top fluid as possible.

11. Turn the Scrawlish out onto a floured board and knead for about 20 minutes, alternately adding the Hyssop vinegar and Woodruff jam, until it is elastic and not too lumpy.  At this point the Scrawlish dough should be unpleasant to look at and touch. You can’t really get used to it. Form into a roughly loaf-shaped mass and place on a baking sheet you intend to discard afterwards.  Bake at 275 degrees for 12 hours in a very well-ventilated room.

12. Remove and allow the loaf to cool completely.  The loaf will keep indefinitely. Loaves were often passed down from generation to generation.

Serves all or none

Nutritional information: unknown.

To conclude, as the dish migrated down from the Carpathians into the plains and cities of Hungary, it was considerably tamed.  However, it retained its air of mystery as a “special” dish, and throughout most the 19th century the eating of it was considered a venal sin.

*To spatchcock a fowl: Place the bird breast side down on as clean a surface as you can find. Using a very sharp knife cut from the neck to the tail end along both sides of the backbone to remove. This takes some force. Make a small slit in the cartilage at the bottom end of the breast bone, then with both hands placed on the rib cage, crack open the bird by opening it, like a book, towards the cutting surface.  This will reveal the keel bone. Run you fingers up along wither side of the cartilage in between in between the breasts to loosen it from the flesh, then grab the keel bone and pull it up to remove it, along with the attached cartilage.  Flip over and smooth the skin.  The bird is now spatchcocked.

**Although a three day ride is sufficient for an authentic Chicken Scrawlish, Scrawlishes were often distinguished and rated by the length of time continuously “saddled.” In addition to this recipe of Three Day Scrawlish, there was Five Day Scrawlish, Eight Day Scrawlish, and for special occasions, Campaign Scrawlish, where the chicken was “saddled” for an entire military campaign or until the rider returned home.  This Scrawlish was also called “Funeral Scrawlish” or “Missing Limb Scrawlish.”

*** The exact meaning of this sentence in the original is in dispute. The original recipe continues: “Immediately start a novena for protection against the Unclean One. And spit thrice upon leaving or entering the house for the following week.” 

Tuesday Blogasbord

This review of Rod Smith's Deed.

*    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *    *

The Map: These quotes from interviews with John Barr, President of the Poetry Foundation:

I think it is reasonable for us to ask that the Poetry Foundation run itself as efficiently as a small, well-run, for-profit enterprise. There's no reason poets can't tie their shoelaces just like everybody else.

I have spent long periods of my life not understanding the poems in the New Yorker magazine. In fact I'm still not sure I understand them even though I live and breathe poetry. Some poems are elusive on purpose and some are dealing with subjects that are hard to talk about. But my encouragement to people with [a similar] opinion about poetry is that effort is rewarded, and there's always some kinds of poetry that are going to be obtainable on the first hearing.

So there's no 'one kind' of poetry any more than there is one kind of business. I would greatly encourage -- for what it does for your life -- the effort of finding some part that you're comfortable with.

And if you're not getting it, I sure wouldn't beat yourself over the head with it.

. . . I think poets should be imperialists; I think they should be importers; I think they should be exploiters of external experience, without apology. I don't see that kind of thinking very often in the poetry world.

The reason I love for poets to succeed through the sales of their books . . . is because it’s the complete test: They’re writing it; there is an audience out there who is going to buy it because they’ve learned to value it.

The Territory: This quote  from Geoffrey Hill on "accessibility," so-called, in poetry:

My concern is not with ‘accessibility’ so much as with the ‘naked thew and sinew of the English language’, as Hopkins names it. An achieved poem is always beautiful in its own way, though such a way will many times strike people as harsh and repellent…

The word ‘accessible’ is fine in its place; that is to say, public toilets should be accessible to people in wheelchairs; but a word that is perfectly in its place in civics or civic arts is entirely out of place, I think, in a wider discussion of the arts. There is no reason why a work of art should be instantly accessible, certainly not in the terms which lie behind most people's use of the word.

In my view, difficult poetry is the most democratic, because you are doing your audience the honour of supposing that they are intelligent human beings. So much of the populist poetry of today treats people as if they were fools. And that particular aspect, and the aspect of the forgetting of a tradition, go together…

Some years ago I came across a note by the German philosopher Theodor Haecker (1889-1945). He writes that ‘Tyrants always want a language and literature that is easily understood.’ I think that legitimate difficulty (difficulty of course can be faked) is essentially democratic.

*    *    *    *    *   *    *    *   *    *    *

So, last week we began a quick comparison of the pros and cons of poetry.  Here's a recap so far:

Poetry pros from a writer's perspective:

• Does not require all five senses, though perhaps more difficult with lack of hearing (examples: Milton, Homer, though I'm blank on hearing impaired or disabled poets)
• Materials relatively inexpensive
• Products both very portable and cheaply transported/mailed
• Mistakes easily corrected.
• Potentially culturally significant

Poetry Cons from a writer's perspective

• Materials worth less after use (the Bernstein effect)
• Return on investment: nil
• Easily discarded
• Potentially culturally insignificant

Now, a comparison from the reader's perspective:

Poetry pros from a reader's perspective:

• Relatively inexpensive, especially compared to other arts
• Easily carried around
• Investment of reading time is relatively small per poem
• Easily discarded
• Emotional investment possibly rewarded
• May increase one's attractiveness or desirability to the opposite sex
• May increase social standing in some circles

Poetry cons from a reader's perspective:

• May not be worth even the small amount it costs
• May not be worth even the briefest of time invested
• May eliminate completely one's attractiveness/desirability
• May drastically reduce or erase social standing in most circles
• May be a total scam
• Possibly incomprehensible
• Possibly pointless
• Possibly slightly nauseating

And the first of several comparisons of poetry with other arts:

Sculpture:

• Generally expensive materials
• Generally physically challenging
• May require dexterity
• Mistakes may mean starting work over from scratch
• Years of training to achieve mastery
• Potentially lucrative
• Potential high social standing
• Possibility of commissions high
• Works produced likely to be enduring

Poetry:

• Materials inexpensive or not even required
• Physically challenging only if mountain climbing while composing
• May require psychotropic chemicals
• Mistakes may be interpreted as improvements
• Unclear how long mastery takes, or even if mastery has been achieved
• Potentially bankrupting
• Potentially non-existent social standing/ridicule and mockery
• Possibility of commissions frankly laughable
• Works produced likely at best to be quickly remaindered

From Our Research Bureau

Finally, feel safe thanks to Vrzhu Reliable Poetry Protection!

NEWS ITEM

Poetry is naturally acidic, because carbon dioxide emitted by the poet combines with water molecules to form carbonic acid. Acidic poesis occurs when sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in the atmosphere react during a poetry reading to form sulfuric acid (H2SO4) and nitric acid (HNO), which falls on the audience as invisible dust. Most poetry readings are known to have a pH of 5.0 or lower.

In past decades, to reduce poetry pollution in areas near universities, English departments built poetic sneeze guards and venting ducts to disperse the poetic particulate high up into the air, away from listeners. However, new EPA regulations have now made this method infeasible.

During the 1980s, the American Poetry Society conducted a major ten-year scientific study of acidic poetry and poetry precipitates. This study, the National Acidic Poetry Assessment Program or NAPAP, found that the effects of acidic poetry were greater than feared. The study found that acidic poetry had affected about 10 percent of Eastern poetry readers and audiences and that it had contributed to the decline in reading poetry by reducing tolerance to anastrophe, rhyme and synecdoche. The study also found that acidic poesis contributed to corrosion in prose writing in affected areas and that poetic particles had contributed to reduced readability and intelligibility in the Northeast and parts of the West. The panel found that the readers and listeners most severely affected were those who lacked a natural buffering capacity.

The particulate matter associated with acid poesis has been shown to have adverse health effects, especially among those who are susceptible to mental disorders, or are highly suggestible. There is also some concern that acidic poesis could contribute to leaching of common sense and humility from the literate populace.

HOW YOU CAN BE PROTECTED

With Poetry Ponchos from Vrzhu Industries!

Our ponchos are safe to use at all poetry readings, both indoors and out:

• readings by nationally known poets,
• open mics,
• local readings,
• “slams,”
• book festivals,
• AWP conferences,
• workshops,
• any event with the words "Geraldine R. Dodge" in it, and
• evenings of performance poetry.
  

The seams are welded ultrasonically -- no stitching is used in our ponchos – providing maximum protection from poetic seepage.  Elastic hems provide our patent pending “extra snug fit.” There are also reinforced side grommets to be used for added protection and support. Our ponchos naturally resist rot and mildew. A storage bag is included for safe keeping when not in use.

AND INTRODUCING . . .

New to the line and totally new to the market is a one of a kind Emergency Poetry Poncho from Vrzhu Industries and it is nothing short of revolutionary. Living up to it's name, the Vrzhu Emergency Poetry Poncho, the "Prose-Maker," is the ONLY WATERPROOF AND BREATHABLE poetry poncho on the market today. It is a three micro-layer poncho and is unequaled for 100% poetry protection. There are two layers of Polylyricpropylene with a layer of micro-porous film sandwiched between them. This allows for superior poetry protection with the ability for moisture to evaporate through the poncho. It is also highly effective against UV (ultra-verse) rays, prose poems, sound poetry, oulipo, banter, fawning, preening and logrolling. There are built-in, reinforced, scratch-proof tie down grommets that when in use with a cable lock will ensure your poncho will stay put, regardless. The Vrzhu Emergency Poetry Poncho comes with a convenient storage bag, and. . . AN UNBELIEVABLE FIVE YEAR LIMITED WARRANTY!

Try it and you'll say: Thank you Vrzhu Industries, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Vrzhu Research Bureau, part of the family of Vrzhu Comglomerates and Vrzhu Press, a name you can get your hands on!

Thursday Pictorialianna

Courtesy of the genius-y Savage Chickens, the greatest comic ever done on stickies.