Poem of the Week: "Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too," by Jim Hall

I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been feeling a little down lately. Part of this has probably been the cold, cloudy, rainy weather the last few days. And part of it could just be adjusting to my new job and no longer having any kind of control of my working circumstances. Things should get better in the next week or so, though, and hockey season is just around the corner, so: Yay! But until then, here is a funny poem by the humorous poet Jim Hall. This poem is in an anthology we used in my very first college poetry class, and the professor read it to us one morning while we sat under a large teepee made of lawn chairs (courtesy of DePauw's art students). It was a nice way to start the day. The poem is very funny, but at it's heart, it gets to the problem of being human: trying to conciliate the idea of who you are with what you do. I hope it makes you both think and laugh.

"Maybe Dats Your Pwoblem Too," by Jim Hall

All my pwoblems,
who knows, maybe evwybody's pwoblems
is due to da fact, due to da awful twuth
dat I am SPIDERMAN.

I know, I know. All da dumb jokes:
No flies on you, ha ha,
and da ones about what I do wit all
doze extwa legs in bed. Well, dat's funny yeah.
But you twy being
SPIDERMAN for a month or two. Go ahead.

You get doze cwazy calls fwom da
Gubbener askin you to twap some booglar who's
only twying to wip off color T.V. sets.
Now, what do I cawre about T.V. sets?
But I pull on da suit, da stinkin suit,
with da sucker cups on da fingers,
and get my wopes and wittle bundle of
equipment and den I go flying like cwazy
acwoss da town fwom woof top to woof top.

Till der he is. Some poor dumb color T.V. slob
and I fall on him and we westle a widdle
until I get him all woped. So big deal.

You tink when you SPIDERMAN
der's sometin big going to happen to you.
Well, I tell you what. It don't happen dat way.
Nuttin happens. Gubbener calls, I go.
Bwing him to powice, Gubbener calls again,
like dat over and over.
I tink I twy sometin diffunt. I tink I twy
sometin excitin like wacing cawrs. Sometin to make
my heart beat at a difwent wate.
But den you just can't quit being sometin like
SPIDERMAN.
You SPIDERMAN for life. Fowever. I can't even
buin my suit. It won't buin. It's fwame wesistent.
So maybe dat's youwr pwoblem too, who knows.
Maybe dat's da whole pwoblem wif evwytin.
Nobody can buin der suits, dey all fwame wesistent.
Who knows?



Note: Sorry that there was no Reading Week in Review for last week. With new job stuff, I didn't have time to get much done. I am still in the middle of reading Stephen King and, as always, looking for the next reading adventure.