Todd_B&WOur final home-based arthaus event was last week, with Prof. Todd Robinson PhD. our esteemed and entertaining presenter. As a mentor, teacher and practitioner of poetic arts, Todd took us into some poetry examples, then had us construct some rules for our own “arthaus form” of poem. After whittling away some rules, we ended up with a formal structure of our own… which meant we then had to write, and then share swiftly conceived individual poems.

I shall get to our form and resulting poems below, but must remark on the compellingly oblique approach that this investigation of poetry and poetic form revealed to us as a route into conversation. We considered the nature of poetry in artfully rendering sense to the senseless and lending form to the formless. We investigated how poems shape meaning and understanding, through careful use or abuse of structural rules and the application of content. In that exploration, we reconceived our attitudes to the criteria for conversational approaches. Conversation is a model of collaboration and a way of sharing that can freewheel in random directions. It can require both vocal and silent behavior. Poetry features similar characteristics to conversation, and the creation and consideration of poetry can engender a new way to think about our art of conversation.

As for our creation, “The Arthaus” poetic form rules included:

  • The title must explain why you left home
  • Must include some rhyming
  • Use a reference from the urban dictionary
  • Mention drink and cheese
  • Use a rude word for female genitalia [you are warned!]
  • Contain a completely made up word
  • Include cockney rhyming slang
  • Reference a piece of art in the host’s home

Some of our poems follow (please be forgiving… and note the rude words have not been redacted)

Trouble
Expindling horizontal
At world’s fringe
Where prozac soup
Throws for a loop
The inane insane
Drunk on sharp cheddar
Drawn still
Like a Constable life, dead
Dimensional form
Into which I exhale
And call home.

Haus Invitational
Quickly wrapping the carroway spiked cheddar
I darted south through the neighborhood
Journeying toward people and conversation – What could be better?
Lighted icicles drip, neo nutcrackers stand guard
Where’s the world of Holiday Hitchcocks?
Probably next door to the Christmas cunts.

It will just be better for everyone (WTF)
Plenty of wine and plenty of cheese
You’ve blown it again
Now you’ve got to leave
You raspberry tart
You mocked the soup can art
You called her a cunt
You dribbled the spunt
This house will still stand
But the damage is done
So please go back
So we can have fun.

Homework for Mr. Davidson’s Art Class
The day must
Flow
But it says no
So I left home
Just
To roam
And that worked
For a foamtastic age
Then the page turned
And I felt burned
By someone close
To me
I then wandered
And I squandered
Time and money on
Cheese wine and honeypot
‘Til I started to rot inside
To the warm sunshine I took
The time to make a plan
That seemed so pure
Today I find myself
In my mind surrounded
By white walls and Hitchcock
And the pen clicks “tick tock” long enough
To stop this.

Ode to College
Bloody hell
After a night of drink and cheese
That was all that was
Bloody hell
I’m sure there were a few choice phrases
Uttered from the urban dictionary
I’m sure he called her a
Cunt or some other
Insulting word referencing
Her vagina
As she sat on her bed
Just a little brain dead
From all the drink and cheese
Bloody hell.

To Be Amongst The Living
Gettin’ out of my house
Gettin’ in to their house
Allo’ cunts!
Eat the cheese
Drink the wine
I like America
And America likes me,
FACE!

Restricted by the Pope
I float among the
Euro Sleeze
I wander amongst
Glass & grass releasing my
Synergasm on the crowd.
I navigate my apples &
Pears, drawn to the
Scent of wine &
Brie, a fragrant
Vagina defined by the
Taut sensual curves
Of the opener that will open another
Bottle of wine.

I failed out of college
I left for college
Too near my home
After party years
I came back home
Waitressing for Bob Evans
I saved my dough
I left again for Santa Fe
Yolo on my mind
Greeted with cupcakes
And a prozac soup can
Spent another 8 years
In enchantment land.