An English assignment required students to elect a topic and gather a collection of twenty poems which dealt with that topic in some way. The poems did not have to be famous; you could use poems you found on the internet, if you wanted, and when we asked whether we could use poems written by other classmates, we were amazed to hear an answer in the affirmative. This vastly increased the amount of poetry in the world, as it was much easier to convince half a dozen of your friends to write a poem about, say, flowers or war, than it was to slog through anthologies or websites and compile them.
My chosen topic was laundry. I did, somehow, manage to find at least a dozen respectable poems which addressed laundry, though I can't remember even one example. What I do remember is the set of poems I collected from my classmates, some of which are short, whimsical musings, and some of which are longer explorations of how laundry can be a metaphor for so many things in this gauntlet we call existence. The thing is...most of them are actually pretty damned good. Here are the six that remain.
Poem 1: Worn Laundry
This poem's author was heavily under the influence of death metal at the time of writing, and it clearly shows. And yet...it's almost surely the best poem of the bunch, brimming with wordplay as it recasts the action of the washing machine as a merciless, punishing battle for survival.
Poem 2: Untitled
A rambling, loosely structured musing on morality and karma, this is another one of my favorites, particularly for the line "Who doth not love thine wash?"
Poem 3: Untitled
Written in front of me in a matter of seconds, this poem nevertheless, in its extreme economy, achieves a successful narrative, delivering a poignancy its author may very well not have intended. I have no idea why he chose to remain anonymous; this poem was written by a fellow named Josh Goldner.
Poem 4: Untitled
Echoing the strict, self-conscious silliness of much cavalier poetry, this delightful snatch of doggerel dramatizes the laundry-doer's task, elevating the ordinary even as it parodies it. "Bash Zool" was a local term of abuse, whose origin has been lost to the ages; incidentally, it is
also a googlewhack.
Poem 5: Ode To My Laundry Hamper
This piece was dictated to me over the phone as it was composed on the spot. Here again, the profundity of the piece extends well beyond the author's likely intentions. The titular laundry hamper once held glorious threads, but it has fallen from its auspicious beginnings as its owner's fortunes have nosedived. Their King-of-Spain circumstances invite multiple readings - as an allegory for the trappings of fame, for the changing of fashions, cultures, and civilizations, as a meditation on the frailty of the human condition, perhaps even a critique of capitalism. The work evokes Hemingway in the simplicity of its expression, but also Stevens in its oblique wryness.
Poem 6: Socks
This looks like another one cast off in seconds, but my recollection of the author leads me to think he probably agonized over the exact details. The deliciously subtle structure of the piece is ruined by exegesis - just read it, and ponder.
