Here at long last is what i like to call my maggoty opus. While it must speak for itself i hope you’ll forgive a few prefatory remarks to give a frame of reference.
I never realized how complex a joke could be until i started putting this thing together. The pieces were written over roughly a 3 year stretch tho’ some snake back probably 30 plus. Though written recently there are kernels of them all thru my journals going back to college days. All those random bits which seemed to be saying the same things over and over began to coalesce and suddenly (it seemed) began to make sense–though that’s probably not the right term–they at least began to find some cohesion, some connection to the ‘real’ world which was necessary to give them some universality, some touch-stone that might make them connectable to other–dare i say–readers. Without that they were only solipstic mewlings.
Though they’re all, of course, personal they shouldn’t (with a couple exceptions) be taken as autobiographical. Besides, even memory is largely fiction. I worked hard even before compiling these to remove the “I” from my writing. I think i have succeeded as much as is possible. And though i mean them to be abstract it shouldn’t be thought that they are not meant to be emotive. Ideas for me have long had the potential to be just as ‘touching,’ just as intense as any feeling or emotion.
But back to the joke business. Many of these pieces come off as–and so i guess are–dark. My wit has always been dry (brutish some might say) and these are as the surface of the moon, the driest cheese imaginable. In fact, very few of the pieces are jokes, per se, if at all. Some have a kind of punch-line or a last bit meant to tie things up neatly, but few would call them jokes as such. They might be seen as a kind of poetic Jeopardy; the reader being obliged to fill in the set-up for the lead up to the ‘punch-line.’ This doesn’t mean that they are some kind of puzzle. A poem (i cringe to use the word, but…) is not something one ‘figures out.’ It either connects or it doesn’t. Much like a joke ya git it or ya don’t.
Maybe joke isn’t the right word, but if irony be the soul of wit, then i think it comes close enough. Modris Eckstein in Rites of Spring writes that irony “is one expression of sensibility at odds with its surroundings.” It is then an expression of dislocation. Everyone experiences that sense at one time and another. For some of us it seems almost to be our mode of being. For the perpetual outsider it become link to sanity. Those who lack it…
Having read a bit on the subjects, i doubt it’s possible to precisely pin down comedy, humor, wit, etc. But i find humor to be based on incongruity. It is essentially paradoxical. Jokes, in particular, demonstrate practically how sound reasoning often leads to senseless unacceptable, or self-contradictory conclusions. We are the butt of every joke, we slip on the ontological banana peel even when we laugh at the foil, for we are ‘that guy.’ Still, jokes help us somehow to square the deal. Another quote whose source i’ve lost: “it is the nature of burlesque to exaggerate the trite aspects of character at the expense of deeper traits, to convey a larger message.”
Well, i hope these do that. I’ve no idea how good these are. That’s not for me to say, though i wouldn’t be sharing them if i didn’t think them passable. I’ve said herein what i wish to say and i can’t–here and now–say it any better. It was Byron who wrote, “And what is writ is writ. Would it were worthier.” Or as another failed poet put it more succinctly, “It is finished.”
And just a couple more notes regarding the composition itself.
It was inevitable that the pieces when all brought together should find various common themes. Hence, the “Division of Letters.” It is not a table of contents, as such. It does contain the titles but does not include their location. They are grouped thematically to show the various themes which developed. The pieces themselves are laid out in pretty much alphabetical order. Also the beauty of this presentation is that unlike a book, the reader can shuffle it around, customize it, thrown out those pieces found objectionable, etc.
Also, let it be noted that all but a couple misspellings and all bad grammar, etc. are intentional or at least my responsibility. I point this out in defense of the young gal who did all the hard work of getting this thing into printable form. She questioned me at every turn. I would explain what i meant. she would shrug, shake her head, or just look at me kind of blankly and then go ahead and do as i asked. I did accept many of her suggestions and i couldn’t have done it without her. Well, she’s now in grad school at Columbia. (Probably still shaking her head).
And lastly, though i’ve spent some time prepping the reader as to the dark-humored nature of these pieces i think i need to say they are not for the weak of mind or of spirit. (Certainly not for the irony-deficient). I don’t pass them along to just anyone. But they are honest and are as truthful as i know how to make them. I owe to all my friends a deep debt of gratitude for helping me remember that without those things life is indeed pointless.
Good luck on this journey,
Dave
poetastrophy 