Huuklyeand Cinquor's First Published Poem?

"The Fascination of Difficult Questions"

Because I have spent my life

Struggling with insurmountable difficulties—

Women’s sexual hang-ups, straggling girdles,

My own rattling knock-knees—

Will I be able?

Because I have met riddles threatening to ruin me—

How to pour out ketchup or how to spell it,

The getting rid of prune pits and gum gracefully—

Will I succeed?

And because I have seen nightmares

Flying at me in daydreams—

Yeats riding sidesaddle,

Beating a dead and falling horse—

Shall I now say t. s. and eat another peach?

Moderator’s comments: A reader (whom I suspect is writing under a pseudonym) recently sent me the above poem together with the following note:

Dear Mr. Vazambam:

I have been following with great interest your posts dedicated to the so-called Apophthegmata of Huuklyeand Cinquor, not because I’m a fan of his work—far from it—deep down I’ve always had the gut feeling he’s a sham and fake and over the past three months I’ve been trying to dig up enough evidence to support these accusations. I think what I’ve unearthed so far is damning enough evidence to reveal him as purveyor of base metals and plagiarist par excellence. Take the above poem, for example. It claims to be his first published work, appearing in the early 70s in one of the most prestigious poetry magazines of its day—Poetry Northwest. Even a cursory examination shows that it has all the necessary conceits befitting a mainstream poem of its period—wit, irony, puns, overblown literary metaphors, a slight dose of male chauvinism, snide allusions to Yeats’ masculinity and Eliot’s bowel movements, rhetorical questions up the bung hole, etc.—in short, just the prescription needed to fit this particular editor’s bill. This is all fine and well but the riddle remains—is this poem really Cinquor’s?

The table of contents states that it is indeed written by one Huuklyeand Cinquor, but when the reader goes to the contributors’ notes, he is duly informed that Cinquor was a graduate student at the University of Washington when this particular poem was published; however, an extensive search of the files of the Registrar’s Office conducted by yours truly shows that there is no record of anybody named Huuklyeand Cinquor ever having attended the University of Washington!

I shall be presenting more evidence supporting my claims re Mr. Cinquor in due time. In the meanwhile, I remain

Yours truly,

I.M. Sully-Maculate Zaengmac

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Practical Criticism

If I remember correctly, the last poem

You wrote was about writing a poem;

Your next one should be about forgetting it.

Moderator’s comments: I suspect few people read I. A. Richards anymore but he was the latest rage in literary criticism throughout the first half of the previous century and it seems that Cinquor is paying homage to him with this little poem. Not to belittle Richards' many talents but I don’t think he possessed that rapier wit we see Cinquor wielding with so much admirable dispensation here, to wit and to the point: Did Richards ever say anything so downright good and practical?

Department of the Interior

Confined inside

Each polluted river is a sprite

Babbling through clear

Reeds to the heart

Of the homeland—

God, how can you people

Brook not hearing it?

The Golden Mystery Train

It’s no trade secret, Mr. 
Mordecue Ruepart Giltrip—

It’s not going to stop in time

To let you off unless you promise

Never to get back on again.

The Inn of Worldly Delights

Each of its rooms was large enough

To hold millions of travelers,

But too small to keep

Each one happy.