I wrote these years ago, so it wouldn't feel right to submit them to the contest, but I've written poetry about some of my spins, and I thought it'd be nice to share a couple. (Substack doesn't seem to like lined poetry, so I'm just going to try putting each stanza together) Here's a stanza from a poem I wrote about Doctor Who:
"For the battle’s not won with size or with guns, / But instead by being the cleverer ones – / With spirit and might and a lust for the right / And just enough of a plan to keep you in flight."
And here's a poem I wrote about Buster Keaton. It focuses on the lowest point of his career--when he signed with MGM and lost creative control of his movies, contributing to his struggles with alcohol--but within that, I still celebrate his work and what made him so special, as both a comedian and a silent filmmaker:
A Letter to MGM, 1928-1933
You bought yourself a comic genius / To set on a shelf, / A somber little clown in slapshoes / Whose flat, crooked hat / Kept his ideas from spilling out.
Buster was just a word / Until he somersaulted down a flight of stairs / And made it a name.
His imagination was kinetic, / And when someone turned him loose, / He was like a wind-machine cyclone. / He built cockeyed patchwork houses / That revolved at the foundation / And told silent puns over telegraph wires. / He shared the screen with a bovine leading lady; / He fought a deep-sea duel with a swordfish / And rode the collapse of a crumbling automobile.
He was a slapstick pioneer / Who danced a soft shoe with himself in 1920 – / Two Busters onscreen, / Three Busters side by side, / Nine Busters all in a how’d-he-do-that row. / He knew that a picture / Was something to eat and sleep / And dream, / And he never found a home / In your static joke factories. / It was like enlisting Einstein / To make a vinegar volcano, / Or Turing to crack a Sudoku.
He made pictures that moved, / But you only wanted pictures that talked. / He used to tumble, / End-over-end pirouetting / With an athletic vaudeville grace / That only looked like clumsiness. / He broke his ribs / To tickle ours, / Knowing full well / That stuntmen don’t get the laughs.
When he was yours, / You wrapped your commodity in cotton; / He was an action figure / And you kept him in the package. / At most, he’d smuggle in an unsanctioned pratfall, / And in between recitations / Of someone else’s idea of humor, / He’d stumble hard out of frame / With a microphone-shaking crash.
His mind was a Rube Goldberg device / That came up with something / Glittering and original / Every time he turned it over. / He understood that the cab of a car / Could stay afloat and set sail, /That retrofitted stovetops / Could fry records along with eggs, / And that ladders could become seesaws / When he perched, cat-like, in the absolute center. / He drew laughs from anything – / As large as waterfalls of his own construction, /As small as a handful of glue.
He outran rolling, accelerating boulders, / Downtown cattle stampedes, / And armies of Keystone cops. / Only you tripped him up and caught him, / Grinding him down to fit / The round holes / Of your prefab, cookie-cutter comedies.
You picked him up as another star / For your collection / And then wondered why he strained / At the edges of your constellation. / Didn’t you know he wasn’t made / To be contained within / Some tidy studio system? / What did you think would happen / When you tried to hold / A supernova in a box? / Five years with you, / And he was choked down to embers. / He spent the rest of his life / Scrambling up the side of his career / Like a fire escape, / Slowly fanning himself / Back into / Light.
I wrote these years ago, so it wouldn't feel right to submit them to the contest, but I've written poetry about some of my spins, and I thought it'd be nice to share a couple. (Substack doesn't seem to like lined poetry, so I'm just going to try putting each stanza together) Here's a stanza from a poem I wrote about Doctor Who:
"For the battle’s not won with size or with guns, / But instead by being the cleverer ones – / With spirit and might and a lust for the right / And just enough of a plan to keep you in flight."
And here's a poem I wrote about Buster Keaton. It focuses on the lowest point of his career--when he signed with MGM and lost creative control of his movies, contributing to his struggles with alcohol--but within that, I still celebrate his work and what made him so special, as both a comedian and a silent filmmaker:
A Letter to MGM, 1928-1933
You bought yourself a comic genius / To set on a shelf, / A somber little clown in slapshoes / Whose flat, crooked hat / Kept his ideas from spilling out.
Buster was just a word / Until he somersaulted down a flight of stairs / And made it a name.
His imagination was kinetic, / And when someone turned him loose, / He was like a wind-machine cyclone. / He built cockeyed patchwork houses / That revolved at the foundation / And told silent puns over telegraph wires. / He shared the screen with a bovine leading lady; / He fought a deep-sea duel with a swordfish / And rode the collapse of a crumbling automobile.
(cont.)
(cont.)
He was a slapstick pioneer / Who danced a soft shoe with himself in 1920 – / Two Busters onscreen, / Three Busters side by side, / Nine Busters all in a how’d-he-do-that row. / He knew that a picture / Was something to eat and sleep / And dream, / And he never found a home / In your static joke factories. / It was like enlisting Einstein / To make a vinegar volcano, / Or Turing to crack a Sudoku.
He made pictures that moved, / But you only wanted pictures that talked. / He used to tumble, / End-over-end pirouetting / With an athletic vaudeville grace / That only looked like clumsiness. / He broke his ribs / To tickle ours, / Knowing full well / That stuntmen don’t get the laughs.
When he was yours, / You wrapped your commodity in cotton; / He was an action figure / And you kept him in the package. / At most, he’d smuggle in an unsanctioned pratfall, / And in between recitations / Of someone else’s idea of humor, / He’d stumble hard out of frame / With a microphone-shaking crash.
His mind was a Rube Goldberg device / That came up with something / Glittering and original / Every time he turned it over. / He understood that the cab of a car / Could stay afloat and set sail, /That retrofitted stovetops / Could fry records along with eggs, / And that ladders could become seesaws / When he perched, cat-like, in the absolute center. / He drew laughs from anything – / As large as waterfalls of his own construction, /As small as a handful of glue.
He outran rolling, accelerating boulders, / Downtown cattle stampedes, / And armies of Keystone cops. / Only you tripped him up and caught him, / Grinding him down to fit / The round holes / Of your prefab, cookie-cutter comedies.
You picked him up as another star / For your collection / And then wondered why he strained / At the edges of your constellation. / Didn’t you know he wasn’t made / To be contained within / Some tidy studio system? / What did you think would happen / When you tried to hold / A supernova in a box? / Five years with you, / And he was choked down to embers. / He spent the rest of his life / Scrambling up the side of his career / Like a fire escape, / Slowly fanning himself / Back into / Light.