J.D. Smith
Humor represents only one of many forms of discovery in poetry. In formal verse that discovery can come from the contrast of rhyming words, the compression of speech brought about by meter, or some combination thereof--among other causes. In free verse humor can arise from observation and phrasing in which the juxtapositions are more situational than prosodic. More concretely, I have found that some very plain statements in my poems have produced a surprising amount of mirth at readings. ________________________________________________________________________________________________
Aubade
Dog, and I believe that I can call you that
with a high degree of accuracy,
in a purely denotative sense, though,
unsullied by cultural associations,
please listen,
since I seldom ask that much of you
(the couch is yours no less than mine,
the pillows, past and present, more so):
You would, if you a possessed a consciousness
of cause and effect, self and other
and the mortality that swallows them,
be grateful to know nothing
beyond that which you know right now
because, for me,
it’s seven-thirty on a partly cloudy
Tuesday, forty-five degrees,
with a sixty-percent chance of rain
and the certainty
of a commute and a day’s work
in which I’ll be wagged by—appended to—
devices engineered by men
who get out even less than me.
Really, they exist,
though you might have gathered otherwise
from the long and many evenings that we share—
like tonight, when we’ll
resume this small symposium.
Until then, fellow traveler on the planet,
Don’t scratch that spot behind your ear—
It’s already bare.
A new rawhide bone is on your bed
and, as always, cane mio,
the kibble’s in the bowl.
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J.D. Smith has published two collections of poetry, Settling for Beauty (2005) and The Hypothetical Landscape (1999). Awarded a 2007 Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, he is currently seeking publication for two collections, The Killing Tree and Landscape with Tank. His essays, commentary and humor have appeared in publications including Exquisite Corpse, Grist, Laurel Review, the Los Angeles Times, McSweeney's Internet Tendency and Pleiades. His first children's book, The Best Mariachi in the World/El Mejor Mariachi del Mundo, was released in October 2008 in bilingual, Spanish and English editions. He provides periodic blog updates at http://jdsmithwriter.blogspot.com.