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The Sword Proves Mighier than the Pen
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| may 10 - 16 |
| empty-handed, longing, for real |
| hi: 85 |
| lo: 50 |
Contributed by Andy Miara, May 2004
HOLLIS, Queens--Queens Borough President Helen Marshal eased bi-coastal tensions last Friday when she rejected a bid by former Run DMC frontman Joseph 'Reverend Run' Simmons to become Poet Laureate of Queens.
While Reverend claimed wide support among 'the people,' fierce objections to his candidacy had erupted from the poetry community.
A pair of former Queens Poets Laureate cast the first stones. Stephen Stepanchev, the borough's first Laureate, argued that rap was not a form of poetry, while the sitting Laureate, Hal Sirowitz, thought Run's recent relocation to New Jersey ought to disqualify him.
But the situation became further inflamed last week when The Southern California Poetry Journal published a new poem by Dushawnel Bixby, a symbolist poet from Long Beach, entitled My Pen Is Mightier, Bitch!
Dr. Rachel Simpson, Assistant Professor of Neo-Romantic Poetry at the University of Iowa, explains that Mr. Bixby's frequent references to unlaced Adidas sneakers filled with 'dookie' and black cowboy hats filled with 'dookie' were direct jabs at Run.
"Bixby's poem, which concludes with the warning 'Don't walk this way, Dookie Face' can mean only one thing," wrote Simpon in her school's quarterly undergraduate journal of poetry and literature' "r. Rev. Run and his crew are no longer welcome in Long Beach."
Refusing to let the insult go unanswered, Washington D.C.-based poet Juan De La Vega took an opportunity during his group writing session at the Breadloaf writers' residence to fight back, denouncing Mr. Bixby'sverse as "weak," his imagery "limp," and his mother - an old French whore. "And not the kind that would inspire poets," added De La Vega; "the kind who gave them syphilis and stole their onions!"
When pressed, Mr. De La Vega explained that old French poets routinely ate onions for lunch. His fellow writers-in-residence used sidelong glances to cast aspersions on the idea.
Infuriated, Mr. Bixby assembled a posse of poets. Calling themselves The Scripts, this new gang lashed out in a number of styles - Haiku, Quatrain, Cubist, Iambic Pentameter and Limerick. The results were published in a small but influential zine entitled "Reverend Run, a.k.a. Reverend Diarrhea!"
The vitriolic text was quickly passed around underground collegiate poetry societies, where it was decided that the typos, grammar mistakes, and other technical imperfections leant weight to the underlying sentiment.
Sources inside the Run camp reveal that Rev, feeling humiliated, expressed his rage by picking up a pen and writing out a $500,000 bounty on Bixby's head. "We was gonna get a real hit man too," added the source. "Not the candy-ass motherf**ker who shot 50 nine times but couldn't kill him."
That's when Queens Borough President Helen Marshall announced that Ishle Yi Park, a Korean-American poet from Queens, had been chosen as Laureate.
For now, real and metaphorical swords are sheathed. Mr. Bixby has returned to writing short poems about surfer boys, while Reverend Run is reportedly taking time to help register Democratic voters in Atlanta.
Insiders, however, remain wary of future violence, noting with some concern the title of Mr. Yi Park's most famous poem: "Hey, Middle East: Yippee Kai-Yay, Motherf**ker! Come to Hollis, Queens and I'll F**k Your Sh*t Up, Bitch!" |
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