Tag: poems

Celebrating the Life of a Friend

The Portly Politico2 Comments

My friend Jeremy Miles passed away last year after a brief struggle with cancer.  He was a gifted poet, with several self-published volumes before his passing.  I highly recommend his poetic output.

Besides being a great poet and a great friend, Jeremy was a builder of community.  It’s not what you’d expect from a Gen Xer clad entirely in black from head-to-toe, often with a trench coat, always with his signature black hat.  Our mental image of such a figure is a misanthropic outsider, or a socially awkward anime fanboy.

He was neither—well, maybe he was a little misanthropic, but aren’t we all after a certain age?  Regardless, he became an essential part of, and helped to build, a thriving open mic scene in the glorious Before Times, in the Long, Long Ago, before The Age of The Virus.

His longtime girlfriend/common-law-wife hosted a celebration of life/memorial service/birthday party in late January 2024 to celebrate Jeremy’s life and what would have been his birthday.  She wanted it to be an open mic, and I’m sure Jeremy would have approved.

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Supporting Friends Friday: Son of Sonnet on Substack

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Longtime readers might remember the thoughtful, moving poetry of Son of Sonnet.  In addition to being a skilled poet, Son is also a gifted orator, and his readings of poetry are always a special treat.

Now you can enjoy his poetry and recitations on his Substack page.  He has a consistent schedule of regular posts, so you won’t be wondering when the next post will arrive.

A subscription is just $7 a month or $70 a year—well worth the price of admission.  Son possesses an extensive theatrical background, which he uses to great effect in his recitations. He even takes requests, and will frequently write poems on themes that subscribers submit.

I bang this gong a lot, but as conservatives and/or Christians, we need to support our people.  The Left gets most everything wrong, but they get this right—they support their creators.  On the Right, we’re often too pragmatic, and dismiss art, culture, and literature as impractical playthings.

We couldn’t be more wrong.  No one remembers early nineteenth-century German tax policy; everyone remembers Beethoven.

So, consider a subscription to Son of Sonnet’s Substack page.  He is worthy of your support.

Offensive Poems: With Pictures Preview: “Cute But Offensive Extraterrestrial” & “Space Frog”

The Portly Politico10 Comments

The following is a re-posting of this past Sunday’s edition of Sunday Doodles (Sunday Doodles CXCV), which is normally a perk for $5 and up subscribers to my SubscribeStar Page.  The post serves as a preview, of sorts, to the kind of content that will make up (I hope!) my third book, tentatively entitled Offensive Poems: With Pictures.  I thought I’d bring it to the masses—you, my beloved free subscribers and daily readers—to get feedback—and to let you in on this new project.  —TPP

Typically, Sunday Doodles is reserved for the classy $5 and up subscribers, while $3 a month gets the first Sunday of the month to gawk at doodles.  However, I’m opening this post up to all subscribers.

That’s because this weekend’s edition of Sunday Doodles features a preview of my current book project, Offensive Poems: With Pictures.  This project started almost by accident—I was doodling at an open mic night on Tuesday, 18 July 2023, and started sketching people around me.  Two nights later—Thursday, 20 July 2023—at another open mic, I drew “Cute But Offensive Extraterrestrial”; he prompted me to write the haiku “Learn to Code.”

That got me thinking:  what if I wrote a red-pilled haiku for every doodle?  I was already toying with the idea of writing poems to accompany each doodle, but I wasn’t thinking of making them a satirical commentary on the strange times in which we find ourselves.  Now, I can’t stop coming up with pithy verses about the various sacred cows and empty bromides of our time.  It’s remarkable how many Leftist slogans are seven-syllables, which works great for that second line of each haiku.

Why haiku?  I like the challenge of stating a complex sets of ideas in seventeen syllables.  The structure of a haiku—five syllables in the first and third lines, seven syllables in the second/middle line—means I have to be extremely efficient with words.

And, to be totally honest, I just find haiku easier to work with than other poetic forms.  It offers enough flexibility in terms of rhythm, meter, etc., for a hedge-poet like myself to play around with.  Once I have to worry about iambic pentameter, for example, and stressed and unstressed syllables, it’s a bit too much for yours portly.

That said, I wanted some form, as I find most free verse to be too loose.  There is something to be said for structure, as it forces me to think intentionally about every word.  Also, I find that much free verse quickly becomes indistinguishable from prose.  Much of it seems like prose writing with random or mildly clever line breaks.

So!  Enough rambling.  Let’s get to the doodles!

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