He Ate Richard Cory’s Bullet

No warning. Just a note dropped in the mail
without a stamp. A month delayed the hurt
of dinner with a gunpowder dessert.

I posted this New Year’s Eve, it disappeared, and I haven’t been able to get it back out of draft mode since. So, I’ll just repost. Forgive the repeat!

Late at night, certain ideas have appeal that would cause you to run screaming into traffic at more rational times.

One of my late-night thoughts for the past couple of years has been casual poetry contests, something with actual prizes since I don’t have any status to confer on the winner, but with a minimum of seriousness and stress.

As Gabriel and I talked about forms and objectivity in criticism, I realized that I not only think forms are easier in many ways to write, they are easier to judge. And the shorter the form, the easier still.

Which led me to the Julain and a contest.

The contest:

Write a Julain!
Win big prizes!

Or, rather, write a Julain and be in the running for big prizes. Big prize. Okay, small prize, really, but you’re in it for the love of the poetry and the thrill of competition, right?

The prize:

A gift certificate to Amazon for the winner.
Fame! Adulation! Other potential prizes!

The deadline:

January 31st.

I was tempted by Friday the 13th, but I’ve allowed for more time than that.

The procedure:

1. Post the Julain(s) to your website or blog and send me an email notification to julaincontest@gmail.com of the submission. I will post a link to your Julains on my blog, or

2. Send the Julain(s) to julaincontest@gmail.com and I will post the submission on my blog plus a link (if you choose) to your website or blog.

The rules:

1. All entries must be Julains. A Julain is a 3-line poem with a discernible meter rhymed ABB. Further information is here.

2. All entries must be available for viewing online, either on your site or on mine.

3. Up to 10 entries per person.

4. The denomination of the prize will depend on the number of entries but will not be less than $10 US. (If you are outside the US and have an Amazon branch in your country, the gift certificate will be purchased through that branch. If you do not have a branch in your country, we’ll work something out.) If there are no entries, I keep the money and bruit it about the internets that poets can’t read and therefore disdain gift certificates for books.

I am sure you’ll have questions. You’ll ask, “Are you insane or do you just dress that way?” or perhaps, “Can a Julain have 82 lines?” No, I don’t just dress that way and no! Julains of 82 lines are anti-Julains and shall result in flogging. All other questions can either emailed to me or posted in the comments section here for everyone to puzzle over. Or you could try just shouting them at the top of your lungs and seeing if your neighbor throws a shoe at you or something. The Julain Contest accepts no responsibility for bruises suffered in this manner, nor for psychiatric treatment if you enter a Julain Fugue State. Don’t forget to drink your Ovaltine.

It’s an invented form, one I’ve been toying with for a couple of years. I named it after me because I have no imagination whatsoever and didn’t want it to be a Cartrain which is uncomfortably close in connotation to a convoy and would give me nightmares.

A Julain is:

a 3-line poem
with a discernible meter
rhymed ABB

For example:

Legend

Someone like you must lie here. Roses thrive,
their petals red as meat and slick with oil,
given sufficient acid in the soil.

Today’s challenge: Write a Julain.

I’ve posted this challenge at pffa before, if you want to cheat, er, I mean get inspired.

If you write a Julain, don’t throw it away. Later, I will reveal the second part of the challenge.

If you’ve never written in meter or rhyme before, this is a good way to start. You only need one rhyme, and the poem will be short enough that you can’t go too far astray.

Everywhere I turn in the last few weeks I run across someone talking about poetry publishing–the whos, the whats, the wheres, and the whys.

Publishing has been sort of a closed idea for me for some years. I’ve never felt much desire, and I had a whole list of reasons why (though the biggest one was undoubtedly laziness).

But I was briefly inspired by someone, sometime since Thanksgiving. Yes, that narrows it down considerably. I was going to seek publication! I was going to review my poems and seek publication! I was going to review and rewrite my poems and seek publication! I was going to review and rewrite my poems and ask friends and passersby for input and seek publication! I was going to review and rewrite my poems and ask friends and passersby for input and take a little nap for six months and seek publication!

It is laziness. I can’t deny that. And there’s fear of rejection in there, too. I gots the fear thing in spades.

But I suddenly realized something else, something much worse. Something, in fact, that sucks.

It doesn’t matter if I publish because the people I long to reach aren’t going to read it.

Because I am insane or stupid. You get to choose. And I want to write poetry to the people who don’t read it. People like my husband–who thinks I’m a talentless hack. Imagine a little kid not being picked for the team, wiping a grimy arm across her snot-covered face. “Oh yeah? I’ll show you! You’ll be sorry you didn’t pick meeeee!”

I don’t know why I think there’s any validation in the world that would convince the man I can write a little. Honestly, there might not be any validation in the world that would convince me I can.

I love poets. Most of my closest friends are poets. But dammit, poets, you don’t make me say “Oh yeah? Oh yeah? Watch this!” while I hang from some artistic monkeybars by my toes.

A few years ago, we had cable taken out. Okay, so it was less us deciding to do without cable and more me getting into a giant row with Time Warner in which many unpleasant names were said.

September 11 happened, and we felt cut off from the world. The FM radio station that had carried my baseball team decided to switch to NASCAR (bastards!), so we were left trying to get nighttime power AM stations in our tiny hamlet. (Can you have a big hamlet? No Orson Welles jokes, I beg.)

So, we got cable back. And there was much rejoicing. And then came TiVo. And then, well, came another TiVo because, to quote the faux-Italian co-respondent in “The Gay Divorcee,” “Too much ees never enough!”

Now it is January, and shows will start returning from their long holiday vacations. They will loom on my TiVo. I am a slave to technology.

Since “Threshold,” starring my TV girlfriend Carla Gugino, is already canceled, there are only two I really care about: Veronica Mars and Project Runway. VM is a great show languishing on an under-watched network. PR is utter camp with lederhosen lingerie.

I’m so lowbrow I have a beard.

In spelunking around in the blogcaves, I noticed that a number of people were talking about the AFI’s list of the top 100 movies of the past 100 years.

The Complete List

I, it should be noted, am a philistine.

How many have I seen? Embarrassingly few. Including, count ’em, zero of the top 5 and three of the top 10. I’d say that I need to get out more, but I think this means I need to stay in more, or Netflix more, or just develop better taste in movies.

In any case, here’s my listie:

6. THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

7. THE GRADUATE (1967)

10. SINGIN’ IN THE RAIN (1952)

11. IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE (1946)

14. SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959)

15. STAR WARS (1977)

18. PSYCHO (1960)

22. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968)

23. THE MALTESE FALCON (1941)

25. E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL (1982)

26. DR. STRANGELOVE (1964)

29. MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON (1939)

31. ANNIE HALL (1977)

33. HIGH NOON (1952)

34. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (1962)

35. IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT (1934)

39. DOCTOR ZHIVAGO (1965)

40. NORTH BY NORTHWEST (1959)

41. WEST SIDE STORY (1961)

42. REAR WINDOW (1954)

49. SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS (1937)

51. THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940)

55. THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965)

56. M*A*S*H (1970)

57. THE THIRD MAN (1949)

58. FANTASIA (1940)

60. RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)

62. TOOTSIE (1982)

64. CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND (1977)

66. NETWORK (1976)

67. THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (1962)

69. SHANE (1953)

70. THE FRENCH CONNECTION (1971)

71. FORREST GUMP (1994)

74. THE GOLD RUSH (1925)

76. CITY LIGHTS (1931)

77. AMERICAN GRAFFITI (1973)

78. ROCKY (1976)

81. MODERN TIMES (1936)

85. DUCK SOUP (1933)

91. MY FAIR LADY (1964)

93. THE APARTMENT (1960)

97. BRINGING UP BABY (1938)

99. GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER (1967)

My favorite on the list? 51 (followed closely by 34 and 26) because Katharine Hepburn is only rivaled by Audrey Hepburn for sheer presence. And I’m not thumbing my nose at Grant and Stewart either.

My least favorite? 22, followed closely by 39. Though when I want to annoy my sister I can start humming “Lara’s Theme” until she punches me. That’s always a plus.

Okay, so I was wrong in thinking the Poetry Wiki was gone. Now, go play with it before it really is gone. Shoo!

(I’ve already mangled “Invisibility” beyond all recognition, but you can do more! Make it a haiku!)

Edited to add: Alert!

Harry, who is a god among men, has restarted the Wiki here.

Please come play. There may be a nickel in it for you.

Nothing like waking in the middle of the night to a stabbing pain in your nose, stumbling to the bathroom mirror, and discovering that you look like you should be starring in “Carrie.”

‘Tis but a scratch, but curse the cat feet that caused it! Oh well. Drawing attention to my nose draws attention away from the vacuity of my expression. This is a Good Thing.

Okay, so it’s not real, and obviously the algorithm is crazed, but still.

Unfortunately, WEE? Is worth nothing. So I can’t sell ’em both and retire to Toledo. It’s all Gabriel’s fault.

No! Don’t try to defend him!

He excited me, then took the object of my excitement away.

Yes, I understand that his project wasn’t attracting very many users. It is my destiny to love unpopular things that are soon abandoned.

But he is cruel, cruel.

The idea of collaborative poetry is one that interests me. I’m fascinated by ideas of voice and identity, of rewriting and reimagining, of renovation and restoration. Gabriel and I have played around with some collaborative poems, mostly when we’re both bored at work. Because the stakes are low in a team effort, that priggish voice in the back of my noggin never wakes up and bites anyone. Wait. Never wakes up and harangues anyone.

So, Harry pointed to a new toy and took it away. I am a puppy without my squeaky toy. A cat without toes to pounce on. A

But without the wheel.