An Apology -- F J Bergmann

Guest poem submitted by Paramjit Oberoi:

(Poem #1759) An Apology Forgive me for backing over and smashing your red wheelbarrow. It was raining and the rear wiper does not work on my new plum-colored SUV. I am also sorry about the white chickens. -- F J Bergmann

I was leafing through one of Billy Collins's anthologies of contemporary
American poetry ("180 More: Extraordinary Poems for Every Day") when I ran
into this.  I love the haiku-like simplicity of the lines, and the random
irreverent touches ("plum-colored SUV", "white chickens").  So spare, not a
word out of place, and one gets such a clear and vivid picture of the event
when reading it.

"An Apology" was a finalist for the 2003 James Hearst Poetry Prize and
appeared in The North American Review Vol. 288, No. 2.

Frances Jean Bergmann is a web designer and artist.  She reads at spoken
word venues, and has been published in Margie-The American Journal of
Poetry, Wind, Pavement Saw, Realpoetik,in the anthology Connected: Poetry
Online In The Age Of Computers, in her own chapbooks, and has a poem
included in 180 More (Random House 2005).  In 2003 she received the Mary
Roberts Rinehart National Poetry Award; in 2004 she won the Pauline Ellis
Prose Poetry Prize with "Wall."  She lives in Madison, Wisconsin (USA), and
maintains several local poetry websites.

Biographical information from:
  http://www.madpoetry.org/madpoets/bergmann.html
  http://www.wfop.org/poets/bergmann.html
  http://www.fibitz.com/biostate.html

-param

PS. Here's the original:
  http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/83.html

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised -- Gil Scott-Heron

Guest poem submitted by Paramjit Oberoi:

(Poem #1527) The Revolution Will Not Be Televised You will not be able to stay home, brother. You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out. You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip, Skip out for beer during commercials, Because the revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox In 4 parts without commercial interruptions. The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be brought to you by the Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia. The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal. The revolution will not get rid of the nubs. The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother. There will be no pictures of you and Willie May pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run, or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance. NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32 or report from 29 districts. The revolution will not be televised. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay. There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process. There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving For just the proper occasion. Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and women will not care if Dick finally gets down with Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people will be in the street looking for a brighter day. The revolution will not be televised. There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news and no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose. The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb, Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth. The revolution will not be televised. The revolution will not be right back after a message About a white tornado, white lightning, or white people. You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl. The revolution will not go better with Coke. The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath. The revolution WILL put you in the driver's seat. The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised, will not be televised, will not be televised. The revolution will be no re-run brothers; The revolution will be live. -- Gil Scott-Heron

These are the lyrics to Gil Scott-Heron's electrifying song, "The Revolution
Will Not be Televised" from his 1970 album "Small Talk at 125th and Lenox".
I love the contrast between the irrelevance of television, and the raw power
of *real* significant events.  Reading the poem makes you feel you're in the
middle of a revolution, and almost makes you want to get "out there" and
start shouting...  Though very powerful when read, you really have to listen
to the song to get the full effect of this piece.

Paramjit.

[biographical information from allmusic.com]

One of the most important progenitors of rap music, Gil Scott-Heron's
aggressive, no-nonsense street poetry inspired a legion of intelligent
rappers while his engaging songwriting skills placed him square in the R&B
charts later in his career.  Born in Chicago but transplanted to Tennessee
for his early years, Scott-Heron spent most of his high-school years in the
Bronx, where he learned firsthand many of the experiences which later made
up his songwriting material. He had begun writing before reaching his
teenage years, however, and completed his first volume of poetry at the age
of 13.   Though he attended college in Pennsylvania, he dropped out after
one year to concentrate on his writing career and earned plaudits for his
novel, The Vulture.

Encouraged at the end of the '60s to begin recording, Scott-Heron released
his 1970 debut, Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, inspired by a volume of
poetry of the same name, and soon found success on the R&B charts.  Silent
for almost a decade after the release of his 1984 single "Re-Ron," the
proto-rapper returned to recording in the mid-'90s with a message for the
gangsta rappers who had come in his wake; Scott-Heron's 1994 album Spirits
began with "Message to the Messengers," pointed squarely at the rappers
whose influence -- positive or negative -- meant much to the children of the
1990s.

The Uncertainty of the Poet -- Wendy Cope

Guest poem sent in by Paramjit Oberoi

(Poem #1499) The Uncertainty of the Poet I am a poet. I am very fond of bananas. I am bananas. I am very fond of a poet. I am a poet of bananas. I am very fond. A fond poet of 'I am, I am'- Very bananas. Fond of 'Am I bananas? Am I?'-a very poet. Bananas of a poet! Am I fond? Am I very? Poet bananas! I am. I am fond of a 'very.' I am of very fond bananas. Am I a poet? -- Wendy Cope

Published in "Serious Concerns", 1992, Faber & Faber.
-------------------------------------------------------

This was the first Wendy Cope poem I read...  and it was the beginning of my
discovery of how much joy there could be in poetry.  I love the poem for its
wonderful irreverence, spartan simplicity, and just the fact that it always
makes me smile.  I have no idea what she's talking about though, so I'd
appreciate an analysis by one of you.

-param

[Martin adds]

I've always loved this one too, both for the fact that, like Paramjit, it
always makes me smile, and for the sheer playfulness with which Cope dances
the boundary between poetry and antipoetry. It doesn't really show off her
skill as a parodist as well as some of her other poems, but it strikes a
note of lightness (and, yes, unabashed silliness) that is delightful to
read. I also have a fondness for this particular sort of wordplay - easy to
do, but hard to do well.

martin