With Deference and Respect

My wife and I went to the Art Institute of Chicago yesterday, and we strolled through and thoroughly enjoyed the Roy Lichtenstein exhibit. I was very surprised to see in one room that Lichtenstein had adapted his style in a series of paintings where he emulated the styles of famous modern artists, like Picasso, Monet, Matisse, De Kooning, and more. Comments by the exhibits curator noted that “through appropriation, repetition, stylization, and parody, Lichtenstein was the first artist to critically and systematically dismantle the history of modern art, though not without deference and respect. As he admitted early on, 'The things that I have apparently parodied I actually admire.'”

Certainly the same is true in my two-book set, Great American Poems – REPOEMED. I am a great fan of Dickinson, Cummings, Frost, and other great American poets, so my parodies are certainly written with “deference and respect.”

Having just celebrated the Fourth of July, I thought I would share my parody of E. E. Cummings’ “next to of course god america i” – although my take-off is less a parody of the poem and more a complement to it.

Just as Cummings alluded to famous lines from song, anthem, pledge, children’s rhyme, patriotic lingo, and “so forth,” I did the same with references to well-known speeches, sayings, names, poetry, and “so froth.” Plus, the stream-of-thought language and the run-on nature of the words and expressions add nuances to the insinuations of the poem.

So, is the glass at the end of Cummings’ poem half empty – or half full?


Here is Cummings' poem:

"next to of course god america i
love you land of the pilgrims' and so forth oh
say can you see by the dawn's early my
country 'tis of centuries come and go
and are no more what of it we should worry
in every language even deafanddumb
thy sons acclaim your glorious name by gorry
by jingo by gee by gosh by gum
why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?"

He spoke. And drank rapidly a glass of water


Here is my take-off:

“listen my children and you shall fear
is the only thing we have to give
to our country is fear itself which
points to the ballot or the bulletin just in
time to lockandload no time for splitting
crosshairs or march hares or march scares of a mad
tea party and i’ll cry if i want to
by hook or by crook (which i am not) for
fools Rush in at his Beck and call to arms
Hannity bo Bannity banana go insanity with
balanced and fairly breaking noise to
hail to the chief mission accomplished to
still the voice of liberty so froth and so on.”

Thus spoke. And drank rapidly a half empty glass.