To Make You Smile | Meg Weston
When my brother’s kids were young, he would read poetry to them. My brother isn’t a poet, nor does he admit to really liking poetry that much. But he read Shel Silverstein to his kids, and my nephew’s favorite was “For Sale”, especially the lines:
One sister for sale! /
One sister for sale! /
One crying and spying young sister for sale! /
I’m really not kidding, /
So who’ll start the bidding? /
It reminds me that many people who say they don’t get, or don’t really enjoy, poetry, think it’s all serious business. I was listening to a talk where the former U.S. Poet Laureate poet Billy Collins was speaking with another favorite poet of mine, Ellen Bass, and he said something like this: “You don’t have to be more serious in poetry than you are in life.” Most people have a sense of humor, find different aspects of ordinary life quite funny, and yet when it comes to poetry they expect it to use elevated language and convey seemingly incomprehensible ideas.
Some of my favorite poets and poems incorporate wit and wordplay in ways that make me smile, if not laugh out loud. I love laughing! (Who doesn’t?) I love finding things that make me smile, and one of the reasons I married my husband is that he “got” my sense of humor. Which isn’t one that necessarily likes slapstick, or limericks, or most sitcoms. No, I like someone who loves a twist of phrase, the double-entendre of wordplay, or shows me a different way of looking at something that I ordinarily encounter.
Some of the humorous poems I’ve loved include “The Trouble with Poetry” by Billy Collins, “When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities” by Chen Chen, “Corned Beef and Cabbage” by George Bilgere, “When the Mermaids Filed a Class- Action Lawsuit” by Rob Carney, and so many others. Even the titles make me smile!
The “ode” is a formal lyric poem that is written in celebration or dedication. But Pablo Neruda wrote 225 of them in his late forties when he dedicated himself to writing a poem a week. One of them was an “Ode to Socks.” He is playing with the form, and with what we might consider worthy of an ode. He is elevating the everyday to make us laugh, and appreciate the ordinary.
I wrote an “Ode to High Heels” at the end of the pandemic when I saw on the news that high heels were coming back in New York—after many who had been sheltered in wearing sweatpants and slippers, began to step out once again. A few lines from this poem: “My dear, I have never lost interest in the sleek curve of calf, / Lifted to towering heights between heel and toes, the uplift / Of my sole. It’s only that we parted ways years before.”
Or from Chen Chen’s “Ode to Envy”: “I’m envious of my neighbors who live in a cooler house. / I’m envious of Neruda for having written better poems / for having lived in a cooler house. I’m envious of poetry / For being more & better than I could ever be.”
Here’s one I heard one night by David Jewell, a poet in Austin, Texas, at the end of a workshop given by Kevin Pilkington at Maine Media. It’s called “Toaster Bot”:
I wanted to make toast this morning,
But my toaster said I had to
Upgrade the ToastBot
To Download Quick Flame
Or it couldn’t make Anythang.
Barely awake,
I tried to Download the Upgrade,
But it said I couldn’t Upgrade
Unless I Pre-Paid the Hi-Brain
& then
Rebooted. To synthesize
The new Wonder-Ware.
What makes a poem funny? For me, this one takes the ordinary frustration many of us have in the face of technology that doesn’t work the way we expect it to, amplifies it significantly, so we see the absurdity in it all. It plays with language by giving things titles, such as “Toaster Bot” and “Hi-Brain” and “Wonder-Ware.” And it plays with the ordinary things we hear or say without thinking about it like “have a nice day” and makes us think about it. Think about it. Poetry doesn’t have to be serious to give us new perspectives on ordinary things. It gives us new ways of seeing. And can make us smile.
Do plan to join us for the Camden Festival of Poetry, with the main event on Saturday, May 18, when we’ll host the Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama (among others) for what promises to be a day to “see familiar things anew”; for the full schedule of events, and to preregister for this free event, see www.thepoetscorner.org/festival.
Meg Weston’s poetry expresses her passion for geology and stories. Her most recent book, Magma Intrusions, was published in 2023. She retired after 8 years as president of Maine Media, and currently runs The Poets Corner. She’s also co-founder and co-director of the Camden Festival of Poetry and a member of the board at Millay House Rockland.
