media Poetry

Posted August 5, 2006 • Comments Off on Poetry

One of my favorite poems ever is “anyone lived in a pretty how town” by e.e. cummings. You can read it on one of the not-oft-visited poetry pages of my website. Specifically, this one.

I just read a piece of Holy Tango of Literature, which was plugged months ago on BoingBoing and which is how Francis Heaney, of whose puzzles in Games magazine’s heyday I was always a fan, came back into my life. It is a collection that seeks to answer “the question of what would happen if poets and playwrights wrote works whose titles were anagrams of their names.” This is his blog. This is the full text of Holy Tango.

And this is his parody of the poem I love. It’s funny, yes, but it has its own lyricism and charm, and it respects the original. I actually quite like it.

nice smug me
e. e. cummings

nice smug me lived in a pretty hip town
(with up so noses snobs looking down)
saks moomba vong prada
i wore my mesclun i ate my uggs

Women and men(both wealthy and rich)
opened their mouths to gossip and bitch
as many by many we spent our bucks
scarf tie hat tux

noon by drunk and cab by home
we laughed our loves and felled our rome
(gin vodka wine vermouth)i
said my shouldnts i scorned my shoulds

Women and men(both thin and tall)
glamour vogue esquire elle
smiled my jokes and slept my myth
cindy adams liz smith