| Poetry about Poetry ... original or previously published poetry, December 2000 |
Big Crit decrees that anyone who wins a poetry prize shall in respect of
that honor give all subsequent public readings of his or her poetry while
wearing Groucho glasses.
Big Crit hereby commissions the production of an anthology to contain
every poem ever published in which a television set appears, all
copies of which are immediately to be burnt.
Big Crit ordains that henceforth all love poems shall be printed in
mauve ink on lavender paper and all war poems shall be printed in
Gothic type and all poems about poetry shall be printed upside-down
and backwards and all poems about one's grandmother shall be
printed in black ink on black paper.
Big Crit enacts that from now on the verbal content of all paid
political advertisements shall consist solely of excerpts from the
plays of Aristophanes.
Big Crit orders all those possessing a budgerigar to teach said avian
to recite one line from the verse of William Carlos Williams;
and Big Crit further declares April 25th of each year to be Annual
Bird Bard day, on which the recitation of poetry shall be forbidden
to all but parakeets, so that there may be no ideas but in budgies.
(originally published in A Glass of
New Made Wine (Poetry Salzburg 1999))
Jon Corelis