Hello, this is ORSON WELLES. We are here in Hell. Figuratively, of course, Atlantic City,
The last time they won anything.
Someone dressed as a Mr. Planters peanut is moving among the crowd. Pigeons. Youths. And I am somewhere -- I forget where -- still alive. That horrible period when I made commercials for inferior wines yet ahead of me.
But I am a spirit and here beside me is another spirit who will help me make this a heaven in Hell’s despite. I am speaking of Edmund or Eddie or Ed or Edward or Eddy Conti -- which is it -- poet, wit, ransacker of the journals of Byron and great rival of Elizabeth Bishop! Welcome, Mr. Conti. I shall call you Edmund! Oh, that is a great role. Edmund the Bastard!
EDMUND
Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law
My services are bound. Wherefore should I
Stand in the plague of custom, and permit
The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
For that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines
Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam's issue? Why brand they us
With base? with baseness? bastardy? base, base?
Who, in the lusty stealth of nature, take
More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to the creating a whole tribe of fops,
Got 'tween asleep and wake? Well, then,
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land:
Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate: fine word,--legitimate!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper:
Now, gods, stand up for bastards!
Stand up for bastards! Do you find that you do this often, Edmund?
EC: First of all, may I say what a delight it is to meet you, Mr. Bean? I mean Mr. Welles. Maybe I should just call you Orson if that is OK with you. You’re lucky, I bet no one ever calls you Edward. I did stand up when you entered the room. I mean, who wouldn’t? And yes, I do stand up for bastards except, of course, for my evil twin brother, Edward. He who is always taking credit for my work. Although I notice he didn’t lay claim to the Ginsberg poem.
ORSON: I love your poetry. Let’s get this straight from the start. In this discarnate spirit’s humble opinion so called Light Verse trivialized by those immensely serious fellows everywhere adrift in the cosmos without a sense of humor and a sense of the comedy of life, sans wit, sans playfulness, sans most of what by God has been loved throughout all time by the merry and sad and sad and merry is so often the Love Supreme.
There is a special room in the Mermaid tavern reserved for fellows like yourself. May God bless you. Aren’t you a bit of a bastard though? Kicked out of poetry groups! How do you live with yourself?
EC: This seems to be developing into an urban myth. Or maybe a suburban myth. I just snuck out of QED. My poems there attracted a feeding frenzy as the vultures gathered. I left quietly in the night like the Baltimore Colts sneaking off to
Meanwhile, I am quite happy at The Gazebo. At least for the nonce. They are still on probation. One more “prosey” and things won’t be rosy.
ORSON: When I said that we were figuratively in hell I wasn’t, strangely, only referring to the fact that we are in
I composed a poem about your poem.
Here it is.
On the Poem The Road to Hell Is Paved with Good Intentions by Edmund Conti
Eddie Conti
Edits Dante.
Here’s your poem.
The Road to Hell Is Paved with Good Intentions
Tried.
Fried.
ORSON: Wonderful! So, tell me why are the cartoons in the New Yorker such glittering little things a lot of the time and the poems such dreary exercises in the SAME most of the time? The New Yorker used to publish light verse. Alas, no more. A few questions. Doesn”t this piss you off? Why do you think light verse is scorned, relegated to as lesser realm? Have you ever submitted to the New Yorker? What does this state of affairs say about the state of literacy in our country. Please, if you wish, rage bitterly or comically or both about this state of affairs. You might also include an aside as to what you really would say if, oh unlikely possibility, you published a perfectly wonderful comic poem about a meeting with Ginsberg and someone suggested that it was a bit Prosey. And, oh yes, -- I read you have written a few ONE WORD poems. Can you give us one here?
EC: I have hopes that The New Yorker will return to light verse some day. In fact, I’ve seen a few examples there. Notably from John Updike. I think if you want your light verse published in the biggies, you need to establish a reputation as a serious writer. Anyway (surprise!) I did have a poem published in The New Yorker. OK, OK, it was in an ad from Light. But even so.
One-word poems: I sent this one to The Quarterly when it was still being published.
LOST IN TRANSLATION
perdu
What got actually published was the title and a blank page. So I’ve had a no-word poem published. The editor was Gordon Lish. (You did want a Gordon Lish story, didn’t you?)
Here is a one-letter poem.
HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY
i
and a one-punctuation mark poem.
PERIOD PIECE
.
ORSON: I want to read this masterpiece. Comment on it briefly. Ask you about this and that and then do something rather horrible. Ok? Here is your fine poem:
ME AND BILLY COLLINS
The sun, low on the horizon,
is streaming through the window.
The northeast is suffering one
of its worst cold spells in years.
(They always say that, these
meteorologists with short memories.)
I’m cozy here and warm, the iMac
purring away, iTunes bringing me
Rosemary Clooney, her voice mellow,
years away from Come On A My
Houseâ I’m trying to write a poem.
And thinking of Billy Collins.
What would he make of my
little corner of the world?
Would he make more of it
if I had a small crate of oranges
nearby? Or a book on Stalin...
Billy--can I call you that, Mr. Collins?--
and you can call me... What?
Eddy? Eddie? Edmund? Edward?
(I get a lot of that) Tell you what--
call me Conti and I’ll call you Collins.
Just imagine, if I were a little younger
I could have sat behind you in grammar school.
We could have passed notes. In verse!
Great poetry deserves great readers and, brother, let me tell you that this poem of yours ain’t going to find them just where it should. First, let’s begin with the phenomena of Billy Collins. Poem after poem delicately and sensitively remarking on all that passes, little tenderings to SIGNIFICANT MEANINGS, the literary allusion, the pop culture allusion delicately made from a world where the sun shines on the green awnings of the poet’s house as he smiles to himself in his study looking out onto a landscapes that is pleased with him, so pleased. Ok, funny and charming once but again and again and then somehow parlaying it into the Poet Laureateship. A nice guy but you have his number. A perfect imitation of a Billy poem and so knowing and damn I think it reaches unthought of heights when you ask
Would he make more of it
if I had a small crate of oranges
nearby? Or a book on Stalin...
ORSON: Do the many realize how exactly right that crate of oranges and the book on Stalin is? Just exactly the objects to mock, poke fun at, subvert and smile at what are finally the inevitable ways and funny pretensions of his poems. And Rosemary Clooney! Ha! And Ha! Yes, all that is missing is, perhaps the Fragonard on the wall with the little girl on the swing and his glimpsing himself peeping from the woods behind her. Ok, that’s just a thought I had.
So. Do you remember writing this? What started it? Reading a Billy poem? And -- and I like to ask this since poets rarely get a chance. Can you please comment on what pleases you about this? Maybe chortle over this and that specifically about the numerous felicities. Also, if possible, what is your best poem? The poem that right now pleases you the most and, if not posted here, could you post it?
EC: I guess the first thing to remark on is that the last few lines were cut off. Mea culpa unless it’s your culpa. We may have improved it. And Orson! Orson! Of course the the oranges and book on Stalin are a nice touch. I lifted them directly from a Billy Collins poems. I did look around the room to see if I had anything comparable. But all I saw were my rocks and stones and a bunch of id badges from previous cross-word puzzle tournaments. No Fantin-Latour moment. What pleases me about it? It does capture a moment for me and I was happy to get some imagery into the poem. Something that I rarely do.
Here are a couple of my poems that I like today. Check with me tomorrow on this.
LIFE
First you have your natal day
Then, later on, your fata day.
KAMIKAZE PILOT
When I got home
I didn’t get
a hero’s welcome.
ORSON: See that lad of 16 years of age seated next to the old man staring at the meaningless sea? That is the young Joe Green. A poet here -- a fellow of a certain age. How sad. One might reasonably expect, given his homely features, the obvious fact that he is not invited to birthday parties (given that he is down in Atlantic city on a July afternoon and dressed in a pair of black Sears slacks and one of those horrible long sleeved plaid shirts available for three dollars from Penny’s and has a volume entitled Mental Magic in one hand as he stares at the sea just like the old man) that he would have departed this vale of tears about the time disco became popular. But no. He is living and here and pathetically has asked me to recite to you his own Billy Collins poem. So:
Billy and the Poet Morons
Where are the poets
For the Poet Morons in cubes?
Give us a break:
Pretending to work
Listening to Werewolves of London
Twenty times a day.
At least.
Do you think that, say,
Mr. Billy Collins
Will write for us?
Hell, no.
Anytime he wants
Sliding outside from his home
To walk his dog.
This might be a poem,he thinks.
Tying up little Roger
His sweet little two year old Westie
As he slides into Starbucks for a Chai.
Sipping it later. “Look at the funny cloud, Roger my man
Yep, it’s a poem.
Never thinking about the poet morons
Knowing nothing about the bosses of Poet Morons!
A man from Oz walking around a sweet home
Safe.
Safe.
I want to be Billy.
I’d take care of it.
Write a little poem.
Dear Poet Morons.
You can all kiss my ass.
Billy
As I puffed out of Transylvania
On my moon powered Guggenheimer.
Which is more.
When you really think about it.
Then we deserve.
ORSON: I think that there is a shared sensibility. Which leads me to ask you this. How did it come about that you have become a damn fine poet and first class wit? We would appreciate anything you could tell us of who you are, how you became who you are with special attention to the comic and revealing anecdote.
Wait: I just want to recite another great little poem.
DiMAGGIOS IN THE OUTFIELD
Fungos
and fongools
Did I pronounce fongools correctly?
EC: Did I spell fongools correctly?
My life so far. I was born in 1929 (Maestro, 76 trombones!) in
I did finally go to Brown where I struggled. I think I graduated but I have this recurring dream where I way behind in my calculus homework.
ORSON: We seem to be suspended in time. At least the horse hasn’t jumped yet. Right here I would like to have a little Edmund Conti festival and try to do justice to a few of your poems:
Button, Button
When one subtracts from life infancy (which is vegetation),sleep, eating, and swilling, buttoning and unbuttoning how much remains of downright existence? The summer of a dormouse. from Byron’s Journals
Just ask the poet, life’s a dumb thing.
Button, button, eating, swilling.
Life isn’t much but, still, it’s something.
Existence is a rule-of-thumb thing.
Buying now with later billing.
Just ask the poet, life’s a dumb thing.
To dream, to sleep, a ho-and-hum thing.
Boring, boring, mulling, milling.
Life isn’t much but, still, it’s something.
Mums the word, the word’s a mum thing.
Button lips and no bean spilling.
Just ask the poet, life’s a dumb thing.
Life, of course the known-outcome thing.
Death and taxes. God is willing.
Life isn’t much but, still, it’s something.
Life is short, a bit-of-crumb thing.
Dormouse summer, daddies grilling.
Just ask the poet, life’s a dumb thing.
Life isn;t much but, still, it’s something.
Previously published in Light.
Felicific Calculus
I figured out
This happy fact:
I'm not devout
But still intact.
From Ed C. Scrolls, published by The Runaway Spoon Press.
In the Beginning Was the F-Word
And God said
Be fruitful
and multiply
but don't
talk about it.
From Ed C. Scrolls, published by The Runaway Spoon Press.
ORSON: Button, Button is really beautiful. Tender, amusing, literate (how many other poems are motivated by reading in Byron’s journals) and, you know, and very frankly, making meaning in the best way – a way apparently not available to many authors of serious verse. And one is so cheered up by the display of virtuosity. The other poems also show your signature wit. Knowing when to deny the expected rhyme, knowing when to give it. So, what poets do you like? What comic poets especially? And I hesitate to ask this … what is the story behind your intense rivalry with Elizabeth Bishop?
EC: First, a word about Liz. We both had this thing for Robert Lowell but he wasn’t for us. He was for the Union Dead. So I said, Liz, forget him, let’s see who can publish the most poems. She aimed high and I aimed low. So she got more rejections. Plus, she kept forgetting to include an SASE.
Wish I could say I was motivated by Byron’s journals or even read them. The quote was furnished by John Mella for a competition for Light. I got an honorable mention. (Darn!)
Poets I like besides Billy Collins. E. E. Cummings. Frank OHara.
ORSON: I will now read the poem for which you were awarded a prize of $1,000!
A COUPLE OF GUYS CALLED BEN AND DON
You have heard of Ben and Jerry
And their ice cream full of fat
And you think their life is merry
With elan, pizzazz, eclat.
And you wish so very, very
Much your life were not so flat.
Oh, to be like Ben and Jerry
That would be a super stat.
Or to be like Tom and Jerry
(There's a happy cat and mouse)
Neither one is the equerry
Neither one's the nagging spouse.
Or to be like Frank and Regis
Each of them with Kathy Lee.
You wouldn't even need an aegis
To protect you. No sirree.
But I know a winsome twosome
Whose exploits are worth a chat
Scary, memorable and gruesome
It's a life magnificat.
They've done overs, they've done unders
They have docked at Ararat.
Let me introduce these wonders:
Ben There and Don That.
They have done moon exploration
They have hobnobbed with the stars
And they're thinking spring vacation
On the beaches up on Mars.
They have done the
Fully clothed and au nat
They've played catch with Yogi Berra:
Ben There and Don That.
They've refurbished a small lighthouse
(Martha Stewart thinks they're clever)
They've been bedded at the White House
Right between Bill and whomever.
They have almost eaten fugu
(Well, they fed it to the cat)
They have been to Boogoo-Boogoo:
Ben There and Don That.
They have seen the Stone at
They have chatted with the Pope
Had a platinum with Decca
And went on the road with Hope.
They have wrestled (each of them) with God
And they took Him to the mat.
They've walked upon hot coals unshod:
Ben There and Don That.
They have Peace Corps'd in
They have hunted where it's leopard-y
They have mastered so much trivia
That they won three times on Jeopardy!
They have wiped themselves on Everest
There's no place they haven't shat.
On the go-go-go; they never rest:
Ben There and Don That.
Edmund Conti of
Willard R. Espy Literary Foundation, Willard R. Espy Award, Department of English, University of Washington, Box 354330, Seattle, WA 98195-4330. (360) 665-5220. Shawn Wong, Contact. espyfoundation.org
ORSON: You know I was paging through the Best American Poetry 2004 and only find one poem of any worth an almost comic poem by my old buddy John Hollander. Mostly, one hopes, selected for its playful rhymes. Yours is better. Your rhymes are fantastic. In fact, if you should condescend, I know fellows here who are willing to engage in a battle of witty rhymes the like of which this world will likely never see again? Interested?
But the Ben There Don that returnings and endings! Ararat! Glory! Glory.
Cole Porter and you. What’s the lowdown?
Do you cheat and use a rhyming dictionary?
Who was Willard Espy, who are John Mella and Robert Phillips and is Shawn Wong an actual name? (Oh, I am horrible). And also please tell us… how much work on this poem? We would like to figure out your hourly rate.
EC: I used Willard Espy’s rhyming dictionary. I wouldn’t call that cheating. The alternative is to go through your head thusly--at, bat, cat, fat, gat, etc. John Mella is the editor of Light Quarterly, where most of my recent poems have been published. Robert Phillips is a fairly well-know poet with good taste in light verse. Willard, a very elegant gentleman, was a light versifier and wordsmith extraordinaire. He was a member of our Light Verse group. There really is a Shawn Wong. He called me to tell me I won. Knocked my socks off.
Once I had the idea, I’m sure I dashed off the poem in a couple of hours. Sent it to Light. Mella said no, too long. That was lucky. Since it had to be unpublished to be eligible for the Espy prize. I remember posting it at Eratosphere. It got a couple of yawns so I just put it away and forgot it.
ORSON: Over 500 poems published. What is your typical day like? (Perhaps you could describe it in verse)?
EC: What I don’t do is get up at 5 am, brew a cup of coffee and look out the kitchen window at the ice breaking up in the river and ponder that. There is no river for one thing, so I stay in bed until I can wake up and smell the coffee. (Thank you, Marilyn.) I can’t imagine sitting down and saying, I will now write a poem. But things do come to me while I’m watching TV. Watching mostly, since I’m hard of hearing, especially hearing TV dialog. So my mind wanders and poems happen.
If I described that in verse
It could only be worse.
It’s better in prose.
Or so I suppose.
ORSON: Ever try writing poems as if you were a famous animal hero? Look at Rin Tin Tin’s interview here on the JD. You share a bewilderment in re the matter of Billy Collins and I think you could succeed in this very difficult genre. Ever write any comic stories? Also, although you have mastered the sestina, I see no examples of that most difficult form: the limerick. Why not? Are you afraid? And you don’t appear to be Irish. Is that something you forever regret thinking that access to certain eternal forms is forever beyond you?
EC: Do you mind if I skip the animal question? It’s giving me a headache. But let me see if I can find some limericks. Meanwhile here is
A LIMERICK ABOUT NEWARK NEW
There once
Ah, here are a couple from a set called Little Rhody Limericks.
There was a wise gal from Chepachet
Who desperately needed a hatchet.
When a fellow named Max
Tossed her a small axe
She declined, with great wisdom, to catch it.
and
The story is William F. Cody
Remarked when he visited Rhody,
”This is such a great thrill!”
”Oh, Buffalo Bill,”
Exclaimed Annie Oakley, “You toady!”
ORSON: What is it about
EC: Hey, don’t forget Pulitzer Prize winners, Stephen Dunn, Robert Pinsky and that Irish guy from
ORSON: A few here at the Jeunesse Doree have read their poems to an adoring public. As you have. Any stories that, as fellow poets, we might chuckle over pointing to either the bizarreness of the poetry audience or our own hopefulness and foolishness or our nobility or idiocy in deciding to have a good time anyway?
EC: I like reading in public. I could never do this (address a large audience) until I had my first poetry reading. Instant laughs and the end of stage fright. Sometimes I feel I’m cheating when I reading with oh-so-serious poets. The audience is always receptive to humor--especially those who were dragged there. I take advantage of that. I’d love to be X.J. Kennedy, being flown around the country at someone else’s expense to give readings.
ORSON: I have discovered that you are also a crosswordist of the first rank. Of course. One sees your love of words open whole worlds to you. In any do you even do well in crossword puzzles not of the old sort? I do them myself but find myself baffled by many references to the trivia of entertainment of the last 30 years. I speak as if I lived in 2005 by the way. Where are the good old crosswords? And some of your favorite words (crossword words or not). Mine are “chryselephantine, vorstellung and phantasie.
EC: Correction. I’m a crosswordist (cruciverbalist is the word you want) of the fourth rank. In the bottom third consistently at the annual crossword puzzle tournament in
ORSON: You seem to have gathered a group of stout yeoman champions about you. One thinks of Christopher George who called you to my attention. And one imagines others who, as we like to say here, eat cold eels and think distant thoughts. Who are they? Oh, we would like to interview others like you! And perhaps this is only phantasie but there may be and you may know of a world of fellows who like comic verse, publish it and so on. Is there? Where? Who are they? Where may we read them?
EC: We call ourselves the Bards Buffet and we meet four times a year in
ORSON: It strikes me that you probably have written witty songs with blissome rhymes. Here’s an attempt by someone here:
Mind of Winter etc.
You say Papagayo and I say Papageno.
I don't mean to defy you. We're both singing in the rain.
Or I don't want to deny you but I think that in the main
Oh, Whitetree!
It all goes down accordingly.
I say Leporella. You say Cinderella.
I sing "Willow Willow." You sing "Willa Willa."
Poor old Don Giovanni was one unlucky fellow
Singing down to Hell. He is singing "Follow, Follow"
Oh, Whitetree!
What ever will be, will be.
You say "Cleopatra and the burning barge she sat in."
I say "Jean Paul Sartre in a brothel in
You say Frank Sinatra. I say Lord Mountbatten.
Fiddle-dee.
On the marges of the wine-dark sea.
You drink Cosmopolitans. I need several shots of Dewars.
I demand that certain charlatans by scutted up to skewers
of Harlequin reviews quite like the Pleasantest Reviewer's
Oh, Whitetree!
It all goes down accordingly.
When you are a poem approval is quite tacit.
But then there's other poems that need a strong carbolic acid
For all them years with Britney Spears on a nude beach off Narragansett.
Oh, Whitetree!
What ever will be, will be.
ORSON: Does the insidious power of song ever overcome you so that you engage in this sort of thing? If so, give us a song! If not, what deep rhythms do you hear? Ever try ballads and so on?
EC: I did write a poem,”Pas de deux” to the tune of Dancing on the Ceiling. But basically I am musically challenged. Too bad about that since my ambitions are to sing, play the piano and tap dance. I do like the lyrics of Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin and Lorenz Hart.
ORSON: Ah, I hear the Chimes at Midnight. I can’t even see the horse suspended in time anymore and I think we should stroll down the boardwalk and buy some Salt Water Taffy and, if you are willing, two boogie boards. And...the sea awaits. Are you willing?
Oh, I should mention that an anthology of comic poetry into which I hope by God that all will post their comic poems will be named after you. Damn your poetry is great and it’s been a pleasure. Now, the only questions remaining to be answered (and you may append your answer after felicitations, closing thoughts and so on) is -- will you boogie board with the GREATEST DIRECTOR EVER? Let’s go, go go!
EC: Uh oh, I can see it now. The Edward Conti Comic Anthology. That would be ironic, but not funny. Not to me anyway.
Orson, Sir, the pleasure has been mine. I’m sorry you’re dead. We might have been great buddies, you with your booming deep voice, me with my funny New England accent with
