Poets Mysteriously Silent on Cheese: DougMart Breaks Poetry Community's Wall of Silence Many, many years ago, back when Saturday Night Live was funny, and indeed, even before that, ancient philosophers, investigative journalists, and writers first struck upon a chilling idea: there has been and is no significant poetry that deals with the subject of cheese. Startling as this is, it is indeed true. For centuries, the world's poets have virtually ignored one of human kind's most beloved dairy products, that semi-solid nectar of the gods that is mysteriously distilled from bovine fluids in a process known only to Tibetan monks, the Pentagon, and dairy farmers. In a journalistic coup that rivals Nixon's Watergate or Clinton's Zippergate, however, DougMart has it on good authority that there is a vast, untapped archive of cheese poetry that has been deliberately suppressed. "Of course we've written poetry about cheese," DougMart's poet source told interviewers in his secret snow cave in the Arctic Circle. Shivering in his black beret and black turtleneck, tugging absently at his pencil-thin mustache, our poet (hereafter referred to as "Deep Inkwell", or DI) told DougMart that the poetry community is held in the iron grip of the Rhyming Council, a conclave of overlords whose dicates mean life or death for those with poetic aspirations. "My first published poem, Curds of Despair, was censored by the Council," DI told DougMart. "It made it into Reader's Digest, but all the copies were rounded up and burned. E.E. Cummings went personally to the Digest's offices and slapped the editor. He went on to beat him with a sledgehammer, saying, 'That's for using capitalization and punctuation, you bastard.' Capitalization especially always made Cummings violent. We learned early on to avoid him, especially since he was on the Council. And you never, ever showed him a newspaper. The capital letters would throw him into a rage." When asked if Council member Cummings was all bad, DI responded, "Well, not all the time. He secretly loved Ann Landers. I don't mean the column, I mean the actual person. He sent her letter after unpunctuated letter proclaiming his desire and devotion." DougMart was unable to confirm DI's claims. Landers herself was unavailable for comment (although DougMart staffers were reluctant to write, lest their letters appear in her column followed by paragraphs of advice only a lobotomized chimpanzee would find insightful). Ironically, DougMart investigators were able to turn up this sample of proscribed poetry, allegedly written by Council member E.E. Cummings himself:
*Dougmart staffers were divided over whether "meunster" was correctly spelled or not. Deep Inkwell told DougMart that the suppression of cheese poetry goes far beyond Council members such as Cummings or even Frost or Yeats. "This is a conspiracy that reaches to the highest levels of poetry," DI intoned dramatically. "I will continue to fight until I can one day reveal my true identy -- and Curds of Despair can be viewed by any reader in the world. I may even use the internet. We'll see." DougMart has received DI's permission to reprint Curds of Despair, and is proud to fire the first shot for cheese poetry independence. Curds of Despair Whose cheese this is I think I know His cheddar's in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To eat this Swiss and then to go. My driver gives the horn a beep To ask if I'm a thieving creep; The only other sounds the bleat Of passing cheese-encrusted sheep. The cheese is tasty, mild and fine; But I have other spots to dine And still have yet to find the wine And still have yet to find the wine. When asked if Curds of Despair wasn't a crude ripoff of Robert Frost's poem (which ends with the famous repeated line, "And miles to go before I sleep,") Deep Inkwell became agitated and stormed off in a huff. |
