Ideas for poems happen at unpredictable times, in unpredictable places, and in unpredictable ways. For example, a long time ago a friend gave me a greeting card with a picture of a dancing banana on the front. It was a funny card, but I didn’t think too much about it at the time, though I did jot down something about it in my notebook. Several years later the card turned up again, and I thought: Hmm…a dancing banana. There might be a poem in this.
I worked on the poem off and on for several days, and the dancing banana soon turned into a singing and dancing banana. That seemed funnier and more interesting to me. The single singing and dancing banana soon became a duet and then a trio. I worked on the poem some more and decided to put a few banana puns into it. Also, I changed singing and dancing bananas to performing bananas. Once I had the word performing, I realized that four was a better number than three for my bananas, as it reinforced the for sound in performing. As the poem developed, I changed four to forty. I had two reasons for this. First, forty worked better for the scansion of the poem, and second, forty performing bananas seemed a lot wackier and more wonderful than just four.
scansion: a fancy word for figuring out the rhythm and meter of a line of poetry
I thought about the poem some more and decided that it would be fun to put as many banana puns into the poem as I could. I wrote down things like banana splits, banana belt, top banana, and more and figured out ways of using these puns in the poem so that they seemed to belong and had to be there. I must have rewritten “Forty Performing Bananas” a hundred times, but I think that it was worth all the work.
Forty Performing Bananas
We’re FORTY PERFORMING BANANAS,
in bright yellow slippery skins,
our features are rather appealing,
though we’ve neither shoulders nor chins,
we cha-cha, fandango, and tango,
we lick and we skip and we hop,
while half of us belt out a ballad,
the rest of us spin like a top.
We’re FORTY PERFORMING BANANAS,
we mambo, we samba, we waltz,
we dangle and swing from the ceiling,
then turn very slick somersaults,
people drive here in bunches to see us,
our splits earn us worldly renown,
we’re FORTY PERFORMING BANANAS,
come see us when you are in town.
When I was working on my book Something Big Has Been Here, I thought that I might write another food poem that was filled with puns, but I couldn’t decide what that food should be. One day I was in a novelty store, the sort of place that sells plastic barf and hot-pepper chewing gum. I bought a little plastic foam glider in the shape of a hot dog. “What a great idea,” I said to myself. “A flying hot dog!” I knew that I had found a subject for my next big food poem. By the way, I also bought a flying hamburger and flying french fries, but so far they haven’t resulted in poems.
Once again I took out my notebook and made a list. This time I listed all the hot dog puns I could think of, some of which are obvious and some of which are hidden in the poem. I thought of many more hot dog puns than I had banana puns. As the poem progressed, I decided to change that single flying hot dog to five flying hot dogs, a sort of mini-squadron. I wrote the poem in the voice of the squadron leader, whom I like to think of as Major Wiener. He boasts about his aeronautical exploits and those of his fellow squadron members. I worked on this poem off and on for more than a year but couldn’t figure out a way to finish it. I wrote and rewrote the poem several hundred times, but I still couldn’t come up with a satisfactory ending.
voice: in poetry, the narrator of the poem. On a broader scale, voice can also refer to the unique style found in a particular writer’s work. In this case, voice is something writers want to achieve, and often it requires a lot of writing to find it.
I put the poem aside for a couple of months and didn’t think about it at all. Then one morning I suddenly woke with a big grin on my face. The ending and a couple of other missing pieces had come to me in my sleep. I sat up in bed, opened my notebook, and finished the poem right there and then. It’s called “We’re Fearless Flying Hot Dogs,” and it’s one of the most difficult poems I’ve written. It’s also one of my favorites.
We’re Fearless Flying Hot Dogs
We’re fearless flying hot dogs,
the famous “Unflappable Five,”
we’re mustered in formation
to climb, to dip, to dive,
we spread our wings with relish,
then reach for altitude,
we’re aerobatic wieners,
the fastest flying food.
We’re fearless flying hot dogs,
we race with flair and style,
then catch up with each other
and soar in single file,
you never saw such daring,
such power and control,
as when we swoop and spiral,
then slide into a roll.
The throngs applaud our antics,
they cheer us long and loud,
there’s never a chilly reception,
there’s never a sour crowd,
and if we may speak frankly,
we are a thrilling sight,
we’re fearless flying hot dogs,
the delicate essence of flight.