Foreword

Every night in bed before we turn out the light, Beth and I read a poem together.  In 2002, Garrison Keillor put together a collection of poems that he had featured on The Writer’s Almanac entitled Good Poems.  The title is appropriate.  There are a few really good ones and a few not so good ones.  Most of them would qualify as pretty good poems.  The poem “Let Evening Come” by Jane Kenyon that I quoted last week was one from this collection.

Among the not so good poems are a category of poems known as list poems.  They are literally a list.  Hayden Carruth wrote a poem, The Fantastic Names of Jazz, which is literally just a list of 35 or so jazz musicians from Zoot Sims to Jelly Roll Morton.  An index to a biography of Charlie Parker is not a poem.  Nor is The Possessive Case by Liesel Mueller which is a list of common or famous possessive phrases from “Your father’s mustache” to “My papa’s waltz” by way of “The hounds of spring.”  Although Ms. Mueller has a better argument than Mr. Carruth, no amount of artful indentation will turn a list into a poem.

Or so Beth strongly believes and I strongly agree with her.

Anyway, Beth has been suffering from a cold the last few ways and in her own gentle way it’s made her a little bit irascible.  Last night we were discussing list poems again before we turned out the light and it made her a little bit more irascible.  The combination of a cold and list poems gave her a touch of insomnia which apparently didn’t help with the irascibility.  So she lay on her back and looked at the ceiling and in her head composed this poem.

List Poem

Rice pudding,
String cheese,
A list is not a poem.

Kennel cough,
Ticks and fleas,
A list is not a poem.

Tufted titmouse,
Cockatoo,
A list is not a poem.

Evening starlight,
Morning dew,
A list is not a poem.

Jazz musicians,
Flow’ring plants,
A list is not a poem.

Resolutions,
Can’s and can’ts,
It still is not a poem.

Can’t convince me otherwise,
Though famous you may be

Your so-called poem’s
A far sight short
of immortality.

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I’m biased, but I think it’s a pretty good poem.