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SCATTERSHOTS: an introduction

 

The contents page sorts the poems into three sections: CBEASTS (45 or so poems about animals beginning with the letter C); LIMERICKS (50 or so); and SCATTERSHOTS (30+ miscellaneous others, including performance pieces and pieces about the history of light verse). The tonal range is broad, from silly to scathing to songlike, from playful to pedantic to poignant. I have preferred to intersperse these sections rather than separate them, partly because the limericks work better spaced out in that fashion, and partly because the sections naturally overlap: many of the pieces fit perfectly well into more than section.

 

Here, for example, from a sequence about the past lives of a parrot, are two limericks about animals beginning with the letter C:

 

Cheetah, Cheatham, TN                                                              Caiman, Grand Cayman

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I once was a Cheetah in Cheatham.                                             One time, as a Caiman, named Eamonn,

I chased Tenneseeans to eat 'em.                                                I chomped the left leg off a shaman.

By the flicker of stars,                                                                  Left maimed by a caiman

through circus cage bars,                                                             he’d claimed tamed, that shaman

as the licking moon lit my tapetum.                                             became, shamed, a layman. (A lame un.)

 

Several pieces collected in this volume—I've lost track of how many—can be found elsewhere on this site: e.g. “Cat, Cat,” “Chihuahua Blues,” and “Johnny Susie’s Halloween” as audio files, at the PERFORMANCE tab; “A November Prayer” as part of a PALAVER blog ENTRY; some others among the PLAYPEN bestiaries. But let's add a few more samples!  Click on the underlined titles to read!