sh*ttalkers \/\/ a thumbnail poetics

I have no idea what this book is.

I’ve been thinking lately on the subject of poetry contests, trying to figure out the ancestry of poetry slams (shouts to Bob Holman and his Bowery Poetry Club for many a fine evening), and literary magazine competitions (no one here to really shout out, and would they be listening). I guess I wonder about Tyler’s question: what does it means to be the “best” at an art (re: avatar backlash)?

Of course, there have been poetry contests as long as there’s been poetry.  The Iliad and the Odyssey were first performed at pan-Hellenic festivals in the 8th century, and there were certainly prizes awarded for the best.  Likewise the word “tragedy” comes from the Greek for goat-song, because the author of the prize play at such festivals received a goat. No kidding. Baa.

This prize goat could be yours!

Grabbing eyeballs, or earholes, or just balls, has long been the concern of poets, in other words. Especially if they like soft, sour cheese and tough, gamey meat. Some poetic forms are even closer to the fighting.  Archilochus, the Greek mercenary poet of the 7th century BC, wrote a poetry of exquisitely spare aggression. He is credited with the invention of the iamb– which has become the base meter of English poetry– and used it to killer effect.  Here is a fragment of his:

My one great talent lies in making
those who wrong me suffer horribly.

No joke!  That is tempered metal. Archilochus takes himself for that nature which does not ask permission. This is an important aspect of talking sh*t, assuming that your preeminence is a fact of life, and everyone else has to just deal.  Take for instance this Somali marching song from the lovely volume A Tree of Poverty, edited by Margaret Laurence in 1954:

Whenever there’s a war to fight,
Gossip talk is a waste of time;
We soldiers must march on and on,
We are the testicles of the state.

Hard to imagine a Western war poetry so straightforward in its self-application. The “testicles of the state” is as classic a metaphor for the military as you could ask for. So what have we learned: (1.) sh*t-talking requires that you assume you are the sh*t, and (2.) it’s all about style, and it better last forever, even though it’s shit.

Tags: a tree of poverty, archilochus, bob holman, goat song, iliad, odyssey