You say your memoirs offer pointed re-evaluations of countless authors’ puffed-up reputations so you’ve arranged to have them published once you’re safely dead. Nestor, it’s time your memoirs were read.
*****
Brooke Clark writes: “The original for this is by Martial: Epigrams IV.33; it’s a good example of the alternating 7-stress, 5-stress lines I finally settled on as the best way to capture the feeling of Martial’s elegiac couplets in English. Martial has a number of these “hurry up and die already” poems; if you read through large chunks of his epigrams at a go you’ll find a lot of themes recur over and over with slight variations. The addressee in the original is a poet, but somehow I found the idea of a writer who has left a “poison pen” memoir revealing what he really thinks of all his contemporaries more interesting. Nestor is one of the recurring “characters” in Urbanities, an idea I picked up from Martial’s treatment of Zoilus and expanded until I had a small cast whose stories developed over the course of the book.”
Brooke Clark is the author of the poetry collection Urbanitiesand has published work in Arion, Literary Imagination, THINK, The Walrus, LA Review of Books, and other places. He is also the editor of the online epigrams journal The Asses of Parnassus and the book reviews editor at Able Muse. Twitter: @thatbrookeclark Bluesky: @brookeclark.bsky.social
I hate whatever novel everybody’s praising now, I hate any café that draws a crowd, I hate the kind of people who are friends with everyone— they’re always “dropping by,” always “have to run”— I hate, in truth, popularity and the eager horde it brings. I prefer to seek out rarer things, and beauty—beauty like yours—is vanishingly rare—but then, you’ve shared it with so many other men.
*****
Brooke Clark writes: “I hate all common things,” Callimachus says in the original of this poem, which is the Callimachean aesthetic in a nutshell: the search for the unusual word, the lesser-known version of the famous story, to lend your poetry the interest of the unusual. Like other poets of his time, he was searching for a way to get out of the massive shadow cast by Homer, the Epic Cycle, and the earlier lyric poets. I’ve always found the shift from the literary concerns of the first two thirds of the poem to the personal, romantic concerns at the end fascinating; do literary tendencies become a model for how one conducts one’s personal life? Or were the literary concerns just a metaphor for the personal? In those long-ago days when people criticized poetry on Twitter, I was criticized for repeating the phrase “I hate” when Callimachus uses a different verb for “hate” or “dislike” each time (the Callimachean aesthetic at work). I liked the anaphora, though, and I stuck with it.”
This poem originally appeared in Arion, Boston University’s Journal of Humanities and the Classics.
Brooke Clark is the author of the poetry collection Urbanitiesand has published work in Arion, Literary Imagination, THINK, The Walrus, LA Review of Books, and other places. He is also the editor of the online epigrams journal The Asses of Parnassus and the book reviews editor at Able Muse. Twitter: @thatbrookeclark Bluesky: @brookeclark.bsky.social
We met one night at a book launch, we drank, we talked, we laughed, I said, “I’m writing a novel,” and you said, “Send me a draft.”
So I sent it to your address hoping a well-placed word from you would get me started; I waited, but never heard.
Now you’ve published your latest and the critics fellate you in print, it’s a runaway bestseller and Hollywood’s taken the hint.
I read it myself last weekend and my entrails turned to stone— my book, but so badly rewritten you’d almost made it your own.
*****
Brooke Clark writes: “This two-liner by Martial (Epigrams I.38) is the basis of my poem: quem recitas meus est, o Fidentine, libellus: sed male cum recitas, incipit esse tuus. (The book you’re reciting is mine, Fidentinus; but when you recite it badly, it begins to be yours.) Originally read in Wheelock’s Latin, I think, when I was learning the language, this was one of the first versions of Martial I did that I was happy with. I obviously expanded it greatly (I hadn’t learned to appreciate Martial’s concision) but I liked the swingy rhythm and the treatment of it as a mini-narrative that I landed on. Also one of the first epigrams I published, in Light, which gave me some confidence that the project of turning ancient epigrams into contemporary poems might be worth pursuing.”
Brooke Clark is the author of the poetry collection Urbanitiesand has published work in Arion, Literary Imagination, THINK, The Walrus, LA Review of Books, and other places. He is also the editor of the online epigrams journal The Asses of Parnassus and the book reviews editor at Able Muse. Twitter: @thatbrookeclark Bluesky: @brookeclark.bsky.social
They’re insecure black holes of need and here they come to clog your feed with photos and confessionals shaped by PR professionals— a pool glows blue in the backyard next to a pull quote: “It was hard to fight those demons of self-doubt”— How brave you are for speaking out! (“Dinner? Umm…the rainbow trout?”) Some glossy shots show off the house where, on a massive sun-splashed couch the boyfriend lounges with a grin— familiar…what’s that show he’s in? “Yes, I’ve found love—I’m over the moon! My memoir’s coming out in June.”
But now hushed tones, dropped eyes reveal we’re ready for the big reveal— speaking to us as to a friend she grabs onto the latest trend and tries to humanize herself with references to mental health: “Depression and anxiety— none of the meds would work for me but a friend introduced me to this yogi, or—more like—guru? He teaches tantric meditation to reach this cosmic—like—vibration?— where all your energies align— Oh yeah, hey, my new makeup line is rolling out in every state— I promise the concealer’s great!” How nice for you. The problem is for those without advantages like wealth and fame, the proper cure for suffering is not so sure, and wasn’t there some news report about—“That settled out of court, so let’s move on,” smoothly insists the always-hovering publicist.
The only cure for their disease? Awards, red carpets, galaxies of flashbulbs dazzling their eyes, the swarms of fans, their ardent cries— the roar of being glorified drowns out the whispering voice inside that tells them that their fame won’t last but crumble into dust and ash leaving them lost and destitute— quick—schedule a new photo shoot!
*****
Brooke Clarke writes: “Celebrities was triggered by scrolling through the news app on my phone and being bombarded with coverage of famous people, which ranged from the adoring to the outright hagiographic. I resisted writing the poem at first, since celebrities seemed like a bit of an obvious target, but in the end I decided to give in & go with it. In terms of the form, I went back and forth a bit between tetrameter and pentameter couplets, but in the end I settled on the tetrameter. They always strike me as suited to a “lighter” satirical approach, and a slightly more throwaway, less sculpted feel — more Swift than Pope, if that makes sense — and I thought that worked for the subject matter in this one. One other point that might be of interest: the poem as I submitted it ended with one final couplet: Reality gets hard to take when everything about you’s fake. I thought it worked as a way to pull back from the specific content and give a final summary to tie things together. The editor who published it in Rat’s Ass Review felt it was heavy-handed and obvious, and belaboured the same points that had already been made, so we agreed to cut it. It might be interesting to know what readers think.”
Brooke Clark is the author of the poetry collection Urbanitiesand the editor of the online epigrams journal The Asses of Parnassus. He’s still (occasionally, hesitantly) on Twitter at@thatbrookeclark.
He puts on his apron every day and dusts, arranges, bests; but the more finicky his entryway, the fewer, it seems, the guests.
*****
This little poem was sparked by the difficulties I have in trying to submit to some magazines and in trying to contribute to some discussions. Eventually I give up. And then make snarky comments.
It was recently published in The Asses of Parnassus – thanks, Brooke Clark (who makes the contribution process very simple!)
This epigram was recently published in The Asses of Parnassus. Thanks, Brooke Clark, for hosting “lots of poems for people with short attention spans.”
Today we give to the earth the body of our little girl, our little darling; we’ll never watch her twirl around the house again in her impenetrable games or listen as she wheedles and whines our names in that annoying tone we tried to break her of before; now we’d give anything to hear it once more. She’ll find whatever waits for all of us when this life ends– eternal silence or the souls of friends– while, left behind, we bow our heads to see what prayers can do. Lie lightly, earth–she stepped so lightly on you.
*****
Brooke Clark writes: “‘At A Child’s Funeral‘ is loosely adapted from one of Martial’s epigrams. This poem interested me because it’s quite a departure from Martial’s usual satirical style. In it, he attempts to convey a genuinely tender emotion, which is well outside his usual register of scorn verging on disgust. That made it a departure for me too, and I struggled to get the tone right — emotional without being mawkish. I hope I succeeded! In terms of form, it’s in rhyme, and uses alternating 7-stress and 5-stress lines in imitation of Martial’s elegiac couplets.”
‘Lost Love – poems of what never happened, and of the end of things that did’… how bittersweet; but what a collection of poets, and what a diversity of stories and observations!
Seventeen poets are packed into this chapbook. Seven have appeared before: Marcus Bales, Melissa Balmain, Michael R. Burch, Vera Ignatowitsch, Martin Parker, Gail White and myself. Ten are new to the series, with wicked little pieces from Brooke Clark, Cody Walker and three from Wendy Cope, and with longer poems from N.S. Thompson, James B. Nicola, Mary Meriam, Helena Nelson, David Whippman, Richard Fleming and Vadim Kagan. Bios, photos and links to read more of their work can all be found on the Sampson Low site’s Potcake Poets page, while all the chapbooks in the series, showing which poets are in which, are here. Each of the 11 chapbooks is profusely illustrated (of course) by Alban Low, and can be yours (or sent to an ex) for the price of a coffee.
I think I’ve blinked At what you write: Edgy, succinct– A bit with bite.
This is in the spirit of a homage to The Asses of Parnassus, in which the poem found a home. Editor Brooke Clark has created a tumblr account that for the past few years has been posting “Short, witty, formal poems” on an occasional (i.e. erratic) basis, much in the spirit of Latin and Greek epigrams (and often translations of them, or modern retellings).
This poem itself is not particularly noteworthy – but I enjoyed rhyming ‘blinked’ with ‘succinct’, as well as the ‘think/blink’ and ‘bit/bite’ pairings. Wordplay is at the heart of poetry, from Anglo-Saxon alliteration to modern rap, from nursery rhymes to Shakespearean sonnets. Wordplay is memorable, and sharpens the pain of an epigrammatic jab. Use it, if you want your barbs to be effective.
The gods compete; some harvest verse, some tears, Some deaths in battle, some vague hopes and fears.
This epigram is nondenominational–in the sense that I don’t have any preference for how people view, or are attracted to, some particular god.
More challenging is the punctuation. Good punctuation definitely helps guide the reader through the meanings of the passage, but what is ‘good’ varies by culture. Many Americans loathe the semicolon beloved by writers of convoluted passages. Many people argue for or against comma placements. In this piece, a 17-word sentence, the first line seems clearer than the second. “Some deaths in battle” might in this case be better written as “Some, deaths in battle” but that would suggest following it with “some, vague hopes and fears.” Then it might be preferable to separate those two parts of the line with a semicolon… but then perhaps the previous line should end in a semicolon too… but then what about the semicolon after “The gods compete”? Replace it with a colon.
I can’t help thinking of the remark often attributed to Oscar Wilde, or, as David Galef pointed out in the New York Times, Gustave Flaubert: “I spent the morning putting in a comma. In the afternoon I removed it.”
Form in Formless Times 