Manly Pursuit Of Poetry It Takes Special Kind Of Prose To Move A Male

Roses are red,

Violets are blue…

I hadn’t planned to begin this way, certainly not with one of the most familiar poetic refrains known to any grade-schooler.

No, my intention was merely to find a smooth way to introduce a new book, “Poetry for Guys… Who Thought They Hated Poetry” (Willow Creek Press, 144 pages, $12.95) by Kathleen Grizzard Schmook.

Originally, I thought maybe I could do so most effectively by quoting from Blake or Byron or Kipling, Richard Brautigan or any other craftsman in the art of creating manly poems.

For example:

“I feel horrible. She doesn’t

love me and I wander around

the house like a sewing machine

that’s just finished sewing

a (delete) to a garbage can lid.”

That is a Brautigan poem titled “I FEEL HORRIBLE. SHE DOESN’T.” And the only thing it lacks is the deleted profanity, which is a popular word for feces and which doesn’t fit in the context of a family newspaper.

But I wanted to use that poem in particular because, don’t you see, it’s such a man’s poem. God, I feel like grunting and pumping my armpit just thinking about it.

And Schmook would no doubt understand. After all, she included it in her book for a reason.

“Women know their place,” she wrote. “We’re accustomed to the double standard and know innately that we’re going to be lied to, cheated on and traded in for a newer model with better performance on curves.”

On the other hand, she continues, “Men assume they’re above it, and they aren’t subject to the laws of love.” Thus, when love expires, “Guys turn into automatons when their love has been spurned. They respond by getting drunk a lot followed by auditions for a quick, easy replacement, preferably someone who can cook.”

To which one could, with some justification, respond: And what’s your point?

But it’s not my intent here to be argumentative. My plan is only to acquaint you, dear readers, with this book and with its author.

Problem is, Schmook declined to answer my request for an interview. And so I was left to struggle through the book all by myself.

Imagine that. A man actually trying to decipher a woman’s take on poetry for men. What temerity.

But how could I resist? In the chapter “What They Fight About,” for instance, Schmook includes poems that range from Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade”:

“Stormed at with shot and shell,

“While horse and hero fell

“They that had fought so well

Came through the jaws of Death…”

To, once again, Brautigan (“‘Star-Spangled’ Nails”):

“You’ve got

some ‘Star-Spangled’

nails

in your coffin, kid.

That’s what

they’ve done for you, son.”

In the chapter “How They Grieve,” Schmook’s choices range from e.e. cummings (“Buffalo Bill’s Defunct”):

“how do you like your blueeyed boy

“Mister Death”

To, yet again, Brautigan (“My Nose Is Growing Old”):

“I wonder if girls

“will want me with an old nose.”

Good question.

Now, this is the place where you probably expect me to talk about the problem with Schmook’s book. You know, as in “The only problem with Schmook, a former wife of the late humor columnist Lewis Grizzard, is that she’s never met a cheap shot she wouldn’t take.”

But what would be the point? Truth is, some of the poems that Schmook has included in this collection - many of them, in fact - are probably the very same poems that I myself would include in such a compendium.

Especially Greg Keeler’s ode to cows (“Do Not Ask”), Carl Sandburg’s grief over the inevitability of history (“Grass”) and Dylan Thomas’ impassioned plea against easy acceptance (“Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”). Not to mention anything by Brautigan.

Somehow, I think Schmook understands this.

“The editor told me that my job in ‘Poetry for Guys’ is to ‘explain you to you’ from a woman’s perspective,” Schmook wrote. “I’ll make you think, make you mad, make you laugh and, most important, make you think.”

Inspiring, eh? So much so that I’m moved to complete my own guy-like poem:

…I can do pushups,

How about you?

, DataTimes