A public criticism
Poetic Licensure
Do the words ‘fart’ and ‘rectum’ disqualify this as art?
I wrote the following 10-line poem for this City of Windsor initiative called “Windsor Voices.” It was not selected by the ‘City’s Poet Laureate & Storytellers team’ for publication.
Windsy
She calls our fair city Windsy.
That works! We’re blowy and whimsy.
Water-bordered, Deetroit looks over our shoulder
and blue-collared pride swells inside.
Multi-this and multi-that,
we wear many hats and that’s a fact.
We’ve been called things, even Earth’s rectum,
but faux proctologists can’t comprehend
that what they blow at this place
we fart back in their face.
The city’s supervisor of community programming-cultural affairs told me my poem, “though tongue-in-cheek and whimsical even,” was rejected because of my phrases “Earth’s rectum” and “we fart back in their face.”
For those unfamiliar with those references, or my cheeky quip about “faux proctologists,” it dates back to a 2012 book by the comedian Stephen Colbert. In his outlandish America Again: Re-becoming the Greatness We Never Weren’t, The Late Show host wrote on page 141 that to harness geothermal power “we would have to take the planet’s temperature with a geothermometer” and admitted, “I have no idea where the Earth’s rectum is.” In a footnote, Colbert added, “Windsor, Canada?”
Well, that little reference lit some blowback from city leaders. Windsor’s clever downtown business leaders even tried to get Colbert to lead a parade but were more than happy to choose Miss Canada instead.
Of course, I paused while I wrote the loaded words “rectum” and “fart.” Were they too unseemly for a city initiative? I asked myself. I concluded my city of some 230,000 citizens is obviously all grown up now and could not possibly be offended by a scatological word or two.
For the life of me, I did not expect that the judges would find my poem was somehow disparaging of Windsor. As the city supervisor Christopher Lawrence Menard wrote, “This simply was not a poem that fit the initiative goal (sic) of celebrating Windsor with positivity and reflections on the City or on weather — the two themes.”
Well now, blow me down! That hurt below the belt. My poem was not a positive reflection of my “fair city!” How’s that for being blown a raspberry?
I’m a proud Windsorite, born and raised in this tough-as-nails border city. But I shouldn’t have to state that to defend my art — if, that is, my poem qualifies as art. It’s like a person accused of racism trying to convince you he’s not a bigot. Life shouldn’t work that way. Art shouldn’t work that way.
My poem is a silly thing, really. Written in rhyme, it’s more Seuss than Shakespeare. But even the Bard had fun with scatological wordplay, as this commentary cites — although in his case he never used the words “fart” or “rectum.” Perhaps I should have written,
We’ve been called things, even Earth’s wind instrument,
but faux proctologists can’t comprehend
that what they blow at this place
we break forth back in their face.
Poetic license is defined as the freedom poets are given to break normal prose standards for things like factual accuracy, grammar and the like. I am using the portmanteau ‘licensure” to describe what happened to me — how my poetic license came under censure by the poetic powers that be. I felt I should have been given a license to play with the language a bit and get away with it, considering “Windsy” was really a celebration of Windsor’s fighting spirit and was indeed positive. After all, “fart” and “rectum” hardly qualify as gangsta rap.
So I leave it with you, dear reader, to decide. Was Windsor’s esteemed poet laureate and his team of merry poetic bandits right to disqualify my sad little scribble or not?
Do “fart” and “rectum” disqualify a poem as art?
❏ Yes
❏ No
Claudio D’Andrea has been writing and editing for newspapers, magazines and online publications for more than 30 years. You can read his stuff on LinkedIn and Medium.com and follow him on Twitter (now X).
