[1421] the trash can

Winding up the computer poetry theme, here's a poem suggested by
Salima Virani <svirani@>

this is great, I just wrote two
poems I didn't like.

there is a trash can on this
computer.
I just moved the poems
over
and dropped them into
the trash can.

they're gone forever, no
paper, no sound, no
fury, no placenta
and then
just a clean screen
awaits you.

it's always better
to reject yourself before
the editors do.

especially on a rainy
night like this with
bad music on the radio.

and now--
I know what you're
thinking:
maybe he should have
trashed this
misbegotten one
also.

ha, ha, ha,
ha.

	-- Charles Bukowski

	(From Betting on the Muse - Poems and Stories
 	 Black Sparrow Press, 1996.)

I know we've just had a poem by Bukowski, but I was specifically on the
lookout for something on the role of computers in the creative process, and
when Salima sent me today's wonderful little piece, I knew I had to run it.
The light, perfectly balanced verse captures very well, the fluidity, almost
I could say the liberation, that the computer affords the wordsmith -
nothing is permanent unless you want it to be[1], erasing a word, a line, an
entire poem is no harder than a click of a button.

Words on paper have a definite inertia to them - the crossed out lines track
their way indelibly across the sheet, a visible and increasingly messy
record of a work's revision history. Contrast the aesthetic freedom of

			  no
	 paper, no sound, no
	 fury, no placenta
	 and then
	 just a clean screen
	 awaits you.

And the poem itself definitely reflects that freedom, the lines pouring
forth with careless abandon until they reach a hilariously antipoetic
conclusion that made me laugh out loud. A fitting ending to the theme, I
think. Ha, ha, ha. Ha.

martin

[1] or sometimes, tragically, even if you do - see Poem #1420 :)

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Hotjobs: Enter the "Signing Bonus" Sweepstakes
http://hotjobs.sweepstakes.yahoo.com/signingbonus

[this poem is archived, accessible and awaiting your comments at]
http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/1421.html
To subscribe, send a blank mail to <minstrels-subscribe@>.

Yahoo! Groups Links

To visit your group on the web, go to:
 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/minstrels/

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:

 http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

From: "Ian Baillieu" <ianbaill@>

Nice!   Focusing on the theme in the title, rather than on
the PC's role, compare Christopher Logue's 'London
Airport' - Poem #1351.

From: zoppelta <alfred.zoppelt@>

I guess Charles Bukowski was a GENIUS.
Alfred from Austria