Tag: poetry

SubscribeStar Saturday: The Portly Politico Summer Reading List 2026, Part IV: Poetry

The Portly Politico1 Comment

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Today’s post includes Amazon Affiliate links to the books referenced. I receive a portion of any purchases made through those links, at no additional cost to you. If a book is linked, it is an Amazon Affiliate link. —TPP

After some delays and enjoying America’s 250th anniversary, yours portly is back with some reading, now featuring a once-great literary form: poetry.

Poetry gets a bad rap, likely because the former has largely devolved into the latter. It’s pretty easy to write prose and then chop it up into sentence fragments with some white space and indents and call it poetry.

Here’s that last sentence as “poetry”:

Poetry gets a bad
rap, likely because the former
has largely
Devolved
into the latter.  It's pretty
easy to write
Prose and then
chop
it
up
into sentence frag
ments with some

     white space      and
          indents
and call it
Poetry.

Well, you can see the problem right away. It’s obvious that this style isn’t really poetry at all. A humorous example of this phenomenon is the gag book The Collected Poems of Donald J. Trump, 2009-2019, which Dr. Wife (then Dr. Girlfriend) got me for my fortieth birthday. The “poetry” consists of our president’s tweets formatted into various blends of shapes and white space akin to my example above. It’s fun and a big, beautiful addition to my collection, but part of the joke is that it’s not poetry (although there is a poetic quality to President Trump’s tweets, at time).

That said, one needn’t harken back to the days of yore to find good poetry. All of today’s examples are from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Naturally, there’s tons of great poetry from the first half of the twentieth century (apologies to W. B. Yeats for not making the list this time; you will soon!), but the twenty-first century tends to be moms writing lengthy odes to their children on Facebook. There’s nothing wrong with the latter, but the efforts are rarely “poetic” in the truest sense of the word.

But poetry is vitally important, as is the ability to read and analyze it. Consider that large chunks of the Bible consist of poetry. The Book of Psalms is a collection of poems and song lyrics. Song of Solomon is a sensual love poem that depicts both the intense passion of a groom for his bride while also echoing the intense love of The Groom (Jesus Christ) for His Bride (us, the Church).

All that preamble aside, here are four works of poetry and/or collections you should add to your home library:

You can pick up all of these in paperback on Amazon for between $36.88 and $51.88 (Jeremy Miles’s—God Rest his soul—collection in full color is $30, but the greyscale edition is half the price). Centrism Games is the best value at just $5.57, and I highly recommend it.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

ceramic object on display

Wabi-Sabi

The Portly Politico8 Comments

Yours portly is brainstorming some book ideas. Right now, there are two in the hopper: the long-anticipated poetry collection Offensive Poems: With Pictures, which will include a collection of haiku with hot takes on the dystopian nightmare of modernity; and a collection of my writings about fast food.

Somewhere amid all the boxes rests my sketchbook, full of detailed doodles that will make it into Offensive Poems. Much of the poetry is written on the backs of those pictures. Once I find that bad boy, I’m firing up the scanner and getting those pictures uploaded.

In the meantime, I’ve been tinkering with some haiku here and there. I’m drawn to the form because, in my midwittery, it’s the easiest poetic form to remember: three lines in a five-seven-five syllabic pattern. No keeping track of iambic pentameter or the like (I was never good with the stress-unstressed thing, even though as a musician I possess a good sense of rhythm) or the like.

Of course, haiku, like all poetic forms of any quality, is more than just following a syllabic pattern. The form in its purest sense also calls for subject matter that reflects its naturalistic feel. The haiku in Offensive Poems won’t really follow the spirit of the form, but today’s little poem hopefully will.

The poem, “Wabi-Sabi,” is based on the Japanese concept of the same name. The concept broadly refers to an imperfect beauty; imperfections are, like a beauty spot on a woman, what paradoxically make something beautiful even more so.

In the poem below, I frame the concept of wabi-sabi in contrast to the Platonic theory of Forms, in which Plato proposed that all things aspire to be the ideal “Form” of what they are. A tree, for example, strives to be like the Platonic Form of a “tree,” which only exists on a higher plane of existence (or, for Christians or Neo-Platonists [not the same thing], exists only in Heaven and/or God’s Mind). Another way to think of Forms is the inability of the artist to capture perfectly what is in his mind’s eye (which, as an unskilled, untrained doodler, I experience frequently.

I’m also fascinated by the Japanese process in ceramics of kintsugi, in which cracks or breaks are repaired with gold, creating a (very wabi-sabi) piece that is even more beautiful because it’s been broken and repaired. There is something beautiful and even profoundly Christian about that concept: God Fills our cracks and Heals our brokenness through the Blood of His Son and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit; an idea to develop further, perhaps, another time.

Well, I’ve done what bad artists always do: written an essay to explain a work that should be able to speak for itself. So, with that, here is “Wabi-Sabi”:

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Celebrating the Life of a Friend

The Portly Politico4 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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SubscribeStar Saturday: “Epistemology” Preview

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Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

Last Saturday I spent pretty much the entire day working on music.  It started with an extensive composing session to write “Epistemology,” the title track of my next release, Epistemology, which hits on Friday, 1 March 2024 on Bandcamp and all streaming platforms, sans Spotify (by the way, my newest album, Firefly Dance, released yesterday, and is available now on Bandcamp and streaming platforms—you should get it!).  After a long, late nap, I finished up artwork and the rest of the particulars necessary to get the files and metadata uploaded to CD Baby for digital distribution (I might need to write a post about that some day, but it’s not exactly a sexy topic).

I’d written the other nine tracks first, but was searching for some theme or album title.  Then I saw poet Stacey C. Johnson‘s “On Knowing,” and that gave me the idea to write a composition based on the different philosophies of knowing, or asking, “how do we know what we know?”  [For a good Christian introduction to the topic, check out W. Jay Wood‘s Epistemology: Becoming Intellectually Virtuous on Amazon. —TPP]  In this case, it was the title more than the poem’s content that inspired me (although it’s a great poem!), but two of Johnson’s other poems inspired me to write pieces for this album (“Updrafting” and “Waltz“).  In a way, I owe Johnson and her writing a huge debt of gratitude for Epistemology, because her work inspired a good chunk of it.

So while my American History students took a quiz on Friday, I rapidly jotted down the basic ideas for “Epistemology.”  I wanted to write a repeating theme—like Hector Berlioz‘s idée fixe from his Symphonie Fantastique—that would evolve throughout the different sections.  That theme or motif represents Truth as filtered through the various epistemological philosophies, starting with skepticism and proceeding through empiricism, rationalism, idealism, and postmodernism, before finally arriving at God’s Truth.  I wanted that last bit to be the seventh part, as seven is traditionally understood to be the number representing God; to do that, I had to shoehorn in “Observation” as the second section.  I also specifically wanted the chaos and uncertainty of “The Postmodernist” to be sixth, representing man’s number and his fallen—and confused!—nature.

Epistemology will release on Friday, 1 March 2024 (if you want to know the minute it comes out, take a minute and follow my Bandcamp page).  But for you—my adoring subscribers—you get to hear the title track today.

To read the rest of this post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.

Some of the links in this post are links through the Amazon Affiliate Program. If you make any purchase through these links, a small portion of the proceeds go to me, at no additional cost to you.

Lazy Sunday CXXXV: Best Myersvision Posts of 2023

The Portly Politico4 Comments

After giving Ponty some love last week, I decided to do one more edition of Lazy Sunday highlighting the best-performing guest posts of 2023.  This time around, it is our dear Audre Myers, author of the Myersvision series of posts, enjoying the limelight.

Again, the usual notes:  these are not necessarily the best posts qualitatively—although they are quite excellent, as is all of Audre’s writing—but merely the Myersvision posts with the highest views.  Note that all of Audre’s writing deserves more clicks and views, so get to it!

  • “Myersvision: Hoarders” (55 views) – Audre’s review of the A&E series Hoarders, which is such a sad but fascinating show.
  • “Myersvision: ‘Ode to the PB&J’” (51 views) – Ponty somehow does not like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, so I asked Audre to set our boy straight with this bit of whimsical doggerel.
  • “Myersvision: Theme Music” (35 views) – When she’s not waxing lyrical about sandwiches, Audre praises the great television theme music of our age.

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

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.

Myersvision: “Ode to the PB&J”

The Portly Politico32 Comments

On my post about my new song “1001 Arabian Nights,” regular reader, contributor, commenter, and controversialist 39 Pontiac Dream/Always a Kid for Today—or “Ponty” around here—commented that he could not understand the appeal of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  He even expressed disgust that such a sandwich exists.

It seems that the British Empire really has collapsed.  But what can you expect from the English, the people whose greatest culinary triumph is boiled beef?  No wonder they conquered the world—they needed to find better cuisine!  Chewing on boiled shoe leather would motivate anyone to go out and subjugate a foreign land.

Having thrown the gauntlet, I threw my own, and challenged Audre Myers to write a pro-PB&J piece, and for Ponty to write one against.  Ponty demurred—how very French of you, m’boy!—stating that he’d never eaten one, so he couldn’t comment.  Sounds like a cowardly excuse to me!

All joking aside, Audre rose to the occasion, but instead of submitting a wild-eyed, pro-PB&J polemic, she wrote a stirring, poetic ode to America’s Lunch.

With that, here is Audre Myers’s “Ode to the PB&J”:

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

The Portly Politico20 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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