A Poem by Andy Rooney by Richard Garcia

A POEM BY ANDY ROONEY
by Richard Garcia

How about these paperclips?
Consider the humble paperclip.
Paperclips do not like to remain in their containers.
Paperclips can be found at the bottom of the sea.
The first paperclip was made of mastodon ivory.
Some paperclips are covered in plastic.
Some paperclips are plastic.
Metal paperclips are desirable.
You can twist them while on the phone.
You can use one to pick your teeth.
It is not recommended to use a paperclip to pick your teeth.
A paperclip can unlock a handcuff.
A paperclip cannot unlock a plastic handcuff.
Last time I mentioned paperclips
I received boxes of paperclips in the mail.
Here are some candy paperclips.
You can use them to attach important papers together.
You can eat candy paperclips.
Paperclips are like some marriages.
They clip things together temporarily.
Please don’t send me any more paperclips.
You can use paperclips to brush your eyebrows.
It is a little known fact, but every computer
has a secret tiny hole somewhere on its body
into which you can insert a straightened paperclip.
Usually, a frozen computer will start up again
when you insert the unfolded paperclip into its tiny, secret hole.
Your IT guy at the office would rather you did not know
about the tiny, secret paperclip hole in your computer.
Paperclips have been sprinkled into space by scientists.
Paperclips ring the planet. Some planets have rings of ice,
boulders, bits of exploded comet, purple and yellow meteor dust.
Our planet has a ring of millions of paperclips.
Recently it had been noticed that the paperclips
are joining together, each clip attaching to each clip
forming a paperclip chain in the ionosphere.
Maybe Mankind could learn something from all
the paperclips that have fallen into remote corners of our offices.
Here are some biodegradable paperclips made of recycled paper.
Here are some paperclips made of compressed diamond dust.
Here is a paperclip I have carried in my pocket since 1944.
It saved my life at Omaha beach by deflecting a sniper’s bullet.
As you can see by its girth, they don’t make paperclips like they used to.

SOURCE: Rattle Issue #33, available at Amazon.com. Visit the publisher at rattle.com.

Swingline Stapler, poem by Stephen Burt

SWINGLINE STAPLER
by Stephen Burt

Likeness held in the hand,
I can link any thin thing
to any thin thing: rarely cold
to touch, and unassuming not withstand-
ing my silver paint’s sparkle. I can connect
a map of Connect-
icut to an atlas of Iceland,
or flatten out the mountains of Vermont.
I have no use for a doctrine of non-
attachment, although I once
put an argument for it together:
I see through and remember any sliver
of paper or ribbon that has ever passed
between my stainless teeth…

In hope that what I join
nobody will put asunder,
I preside eagerly over
every union I encounter; I pretend
that anything I make fast,
will hold fast, though the ever-
sharper incisors of my mother,
Time, her servant, Dust, and her other
servants, Water and Sunlight —
the enemies of the news
today, and of anything you write
tomorrow — will in fact devour
everything I touch:
each letter and artifact
will go the way of all files —
cursive and print will join up,
gold and black merge and indigo,
each stock and weight at last
as good as any other in
the empty chamber I will someday know.

SOURCE: “Swingline Stapler” appears in Stephen Burt’s collection Belmont (Graywolf Press, 2013), available at Amazon.com. 

PHOTO: Collectors Edition Swingline 747 Polished Chrome Classic Desk Stapler, available at Amazon.com.

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephen Burt is a poet, literary critic, and professor. He grew up around Washington, D.C., and earned a BA from Harvard and PhD from Yale. Burt has published three collections of poems: Belmont (2013), Parallel Play (2006), and Popular Music (1999).

Burt’s works of criticism include Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry (2009), which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; The Art of the Sonnet—written with David Mikics (2010); The Forms of Youth: 20th-Century Poetry and Adolescence (2007); Randall Jarrell on W.H. Auden (2005), with Hannah Brooks-Motl; and Randall Jarrell and His Age (2002).

Burt has taught at Macalester College and is now Professor of English at Harvard University. He lives in the suburbs of Boston with his spouse, Jessie Bennett, and their two children. (Source: poetryfoundation.org)

Author Photo: Jessica Bennett, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Call for Submissions: 41 April Fool’s Day Erasure Poetry

Silver Birch Press is seeking April Fool’s Day Erasure Poetry based on page 41 from a book of the poet’s choice — interpret “April Fool’s Day” as you will (humor, trickery, thoughts on the day, but nothing x-rated or raw). Find out more about erasure poetry at wavepoetry.com and geist.com. I like this prompt because at some point we’ve all felt like fools, have been fooled, or have fooled someone else — so the resulting poems will be either humorous or emotional (my favorite types of poetry).

As a prompt, here are definitions of “fool”:

Noun: A person who acts unwisely; a silly person.

Verb: Trick or deceive.

Adjective: Foolish or silly.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

In honor of April Fool’s Day (4/1), Silver Birch Press is accepting submissions of erasure poems based on page 41 from a book of your choice. For examples of erasure poetry, see this link.

1. Select a book and turn to page 41 (in honor of April Fool’s Day, 4/1).

2. Photocopy the page, then mark out, white out, circle, or in some other way (see examples), eliminate some of the words. The remaining words constitute your April Fool’s Day Erasure Poem. (You may submit up to three poems, each created from page 41 of a different book — or even the same book, if you are so inclined.) Make sure the page number (41) appears in the poem (meaning, don’t cross out the page number). Also make sure that all the deleted words are completely obscured. 

3. Give your poem a title.

4. Scan (or take a photo of) your marked-up copy and create a PDF or JPG file. (We prefer files of at least 1MB, but will accept lower-resolution files.)

5. Create a separate typed version in MSWord or in an email.

6. Send an email with your erasure poetry to silver@silverbirchpress.com along with your name, mailing address, one-paragraph bio, and the Title, publisher, and publication date of the book.

DEADLINE:  March 15, 2014

We will feature submissions on the Silver Birch Press blog — and in a printed collection entitled Silver Birch Press By the Numbers Erasure Poetry Anthology, which we’ll release in the fall of 2014. 

Eggs Rated, poem by Shel Silverstein

EGGS RATED
by Shel Silverstein 

These eggs
Are eggscellent.
I’m not eggsaggerating.
You can tell by my eggspression
They’re eggceptional —
Eggstra fluffy,
Eggstremely tasty,
Cooked eggsactly right
By an eggspert
With lots of eggsperience.
Now I’ll eggsamine the bill….
Ooh — much more eggspensive
Than I eggspected.
I gotta get out of here.
Where’s the eggxit?

SOURCE: “Eggs Rated” appears in Shel Silverstein’s collection Falling Up (HarperCollins, 1996), available at Amazon.com.

Call for Submissions: 41 April Fool’s Day Erasure Poetry

Silver Birch Press is seeking April Fool’s Day Erasure Poetry based on page 41 from a book of the poet’s choice — interpret “April Fool’s Day” as you will (humor, trickery, thoughts on the day, but nothing x-rated or raw). Find out more about erasure poetry at wavepoetry.com and geist.com. I like this prompt because at some point we’ve all felt like fools, have been fooled, or have fooled someone else — so the resulting poems will be either humorous or emotional (my favorite types of poetry).

As a prompt, here are definitions of “fool”:

Noun: A person who acts unwisely; a silly person.

Verb: Trick or deceive.

Adjective: Foolish or silly.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

In honor of April Fool’s Day (4/1), Silver Birch Press is accepting submissions of erasure poems based on page 41 from a book of your choice. For examples of erasure poetry, see this link.

1. Select a book and turn to page 41 (in honor of April Fool’s Day, 4/1).

2. Photocopy the page, then mark out, white out, circle, or in some other way (see examples), eliminate some of the words. The remaining words constitute your April Fool’s Day Erasure Poem. (You may submit up to three poems, each created from page 41 of a different book — or even the same book, if you are so inclined.) Make sure the page number (41) appears in the poem (meaning, don’t cross out the page number). Also make sure that all the deleted words are completely obscured. 

3. Give your poem a title.

4. Scan (or take a photo of) your marked-up copy and create a PDF or JPG file. (We prefer files of at least 1MB, but will accept lower-resolution files.)

5. Create a separate typed version in MSWord or in an email.

6. Send an email with your erasure poetry to silver@silverbirchpress.com along with your name, mailing address, one-paragraph bio, and the Title, publisher, and publication date of the book.

DEADLINE:  March 15, 2014

We will feature submissions on the Silver Birch Press blog — and in a printed collection entitled Silver Birch Press By the Numbers Erasure Poetry Anthology, which we’ll release in the fall of 2014. 

Driving Distractions, New Yorker cartoon by Robert Leighton

CAPTION: “I wasn’t texting. I was building this ship in a bottle.”

CREDIT: New Yorker cartoon by Robert Leighton, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Call for Submissions: April Fool’s Day Erasure Poetry

Silver Birch Press is seeking April Fool’s Day Erasure Poetry based on page 41 from a book of the poet’s choice — interpret “April Fool’s Day” as you will (humor, trickery, thoughts on the day, but nothing x-rated or raw). Find out more about erasure poetry at wavepoetry.com and geist.com. I like this prompt because at some point we’ve all felt like fools, have been fooled, or have fooled someone else — so the resulting poems will be either humorous or emotional (my favorite types of poetry).

As a prompt, here are definitions of “fool”:

Noun: A person who acts unwisely; a silly person.

Verb: Trick or deceive.

Adjective: Foolish or silly.

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:

In honor of April Fool’s Day (4/1), Silver Birch Press is accepting submissions of erasure poems based on page 41 from a book of your choice. For examples of erasure poetry, see this link.

1. Select a book and turn to page 41 (in honor of April Fool’s Day, 4/1).

2. Photocopy the page, then mark out, white out, circle, or in some other way (see examples), eliminate some of the words. The remaining words constitute your April Fool’s Day Erasure Poem. (You may submit up to three poems, each created from page 41 of a different book.)

3. Give your poem a title.

4. Scan (or take a photo of) your marked-up copy and create a PDF or JPG file. (We prefer files of at least 1MB, but will accept lower-resolution files.)

5. Create a separate typed version in MSWord or in an email.

6. Send an email with your erasure poetry to silver@silverbirchpress.com along with your name, contact information, one-paragraph bio, and the Title, edition, and page number of the book.

DEADLINE:  March 1, 2014

We will feature submissions on the Silver Birch Press blog — and possibly in a printed collection. We hope to pair the April Fool’s Day Erasure Poetry with our recent Valentine’s Day Erasure Poetry submissions in a published book later this year. 

New Year’s resolutions, New Yorker cartoon by Bob Mankoff

CREDIT: New Yorker cartoon by Bob Mankoff, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Happy New, poem by Shel Silverstein

HAPPY NEW
by Shel Silverstein (1930-1999)

Joe yelled, “Happy New Year.”

The cow yelled, “Happy Moo Year.”

The ghost yelled, “Happy Boo Year.”

The doctor yelled, “Happy Flu Year.”

The penguin sneezed, “Happy Ah-choo Year.”

The skunk yelled, “Happy Pee-yoo Year.”

The owl hooted, “Happy Too-woo Year.”

The cowboy yelled, “Happy Yahoo Year.”

The trainman yelled, “Happy Choo-choo year.”

The clock man yelled, “Happy Cuckoo Year.”

The barefoot man yelled, “Happy Shoe Year.”

The hungry man said, “Happy Chew Year.”

There were more “Happy Ooo-Years”

Than you ever heard

At our New Year’s party…

Last June twenty-third.
***
“Happy New” appears in Shel Silverstein‘s posthumous collection Everything on It (HarperCollins, 2011), available at Amazon.com.

When a writer visits Santa, New Yorker cartoon by Donald Reilly

CAPTION: “I really don’t have any special requests. I just wanted to write about the experience.”

Credit: New Yorker cartoon by Donald Reilly