Humour with an edge
Gay Allison has a way of concluding poems that engender a double take. Take for example these lines from "1977"
Me, I've stopped seeing my shrink
But now my chiropractor informs me,
my head has always been screwed
on crooked.
It's a passage worthy of being quoted in Phyllis Chesler's Women and Madness.
And on a deceivingly lighter note, this conclusion from "The Joy of Cooking" ascribed to a poetic voice that has collected cookbooks:
What I really need now
is a stove.
Such reversals of perspective are well collected in a book entitled Life: Still for there is still life in the spirit that animates... a body at work.
That punch line conclusion from "The Joy of Cooking" really deserves to be set up by some of the lines that go before.
I have gathered all the recipesI like how "1977" and "The Joy of Cooking" appear in a section entitle "When I Awoke" — there is something akin to consciousness raising in these poems.
of the world in my kitchen:
500 casseroles
exotic curries from India
French fantasies for pleasure
and a diet cookbook from Chatelaine.
[...]
What I really need now
is a stove.
And so for day 510
06.05.2008
