Have you ever heard of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele? Nah, not many people have. I remember them not primarily as the authors of hundreds of essays in two publications called The Tatler and The Spectator but because they feuded with Alexander Pope, Jonathon Swift, John Arbuthnot, and their group known as the Scriblerus Club. Yes, I had to look it up because I had forgotten the name. Why do I even bring it up? Well, The Mercy Killing: The Death of Poetry is my Scriblerus Club except all of the members are me. No, wait! Dr. Philip Anderson, taking the pseudonym, Martinus Scriblerus, used by Alexander Pope and later George Crabbe, wrote the introduction titled The Prologue. One set of lines in his work always sticks with me: “…poetry has fallen on evil days/And gone to hell a thousand different ways.”
Unlike The Purple and Blue Collection of Poems, which is a compilation of poems written across 16 years or so, I wrote The Mercy Killing: The Death of Poetry in a frenzy of two or three months. The allusions to, the parodying of, and the direct copying (I should say using words and phrases.) from other works are so heavy in this book that I have forgotten most of them—exactly from which works they came. I was in Dr. Anderson’s seminar in Neoclassism when I wrote this so I suspect it is most heavily flavored by Dryden, Pope, Swift, Johnson, maybe some Voltaire. I can see bits and pieces of all of them in these works.
The title poem, “The Mercy Killing,” may be one of my own personal favorites of my own (Huh?). Though I have rewritten several of the poems in this book, I have never thought of touching this one. How many poets have attempted to write about having to kill a cow that prolapsed while birthing a calf? How many have then compared that to the death of poetry? Not many, I would guess.
The Mercy Killing: The Death of Poetry contains more prose than what I have ever written because it is an imitation of the Scriblerus Club. The prose sounds, at times in its structure and word usage, a bit archaic. That is on purpose.
I have rewritten and reworked two of the poems in this book at least a half dozen times. Both “A Seven Hour Love Song” and “Atheists and Empty Spaces” are prominent fixtures in my book Atheist and Empty Spaces, which is currently being edited for publication. I had also rewritten them for an unpublished book The Promises I Keep. They keep getting better and better.
Anyhow, now Kellie is telling me that I am writing too much for Facebook. This is more like a blog. Sorry! Hope some of you read this far.
The Mercy Killing: The Death of Poetry is available through Amazon, but the last time I looked, it was not available through Barnes and Nobles. I have several copies that I can share, sell, give away, or loan out. Email me if you are interested, and we will find a way to get a copy to you. I also have some bookmarks that I can give away.
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