Poetic Asides

4 TACTICS TO ADD HUMOR TO POETRY

We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—

This debt we pay to human guile;

With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties.

So begins Paul Laurence Dunbar’s classic poem “We Wear the Mask,” which is not humorous at all, but it simultaneously explains the complexity of human experience and the vastness of poetry. After all, poetry contains multitudes. In addition to so many other fine adjectives, poems can be serious, sensual, nostalgic, and, yes, funny. But how?

I won’t touch on every possible trick available, but here are a few tactics poets can employ to add humor to poetry.

Experiment With Parody

The art and craft of parody is when a writer takes an already existing work or idea and amplifies (or changes) certain aspects to make them humorous. For instance, James Cummins wrote a short chant poem “The Poets March on Washington” that plays on the idea of a call and response with the familiar questions “What do we want?” and “When do we want it?”

The answers of “Immortality!” and “Now!” are both hilarious and so, so true.

The poet Billy Collins actually created a new poetic form called a paradelle (covered in the October 2015 issue of WD) that parodies complex French poetic forms.

Choose a Silly Subject

I loved reading silly poems to my children when they were young (and actually still love it now when they’re open to it). One of the funniest was Maxine Kumin’s “The Quarrel” which involves a lightning bug, firefly, and glowworm arguing over which of them went by the correct name— until the appearance of the early bird. Another silly poem, “Gas,” by C. K. Williams, was written for his grandchildren about, well, farting—especially in France.

But don’t forget that even silly poems can be profound and powerful, as in Gwendolyn Brooks’ “The Tiger Who Wore White Gloves,” which is about embracing what makes you unique.

End on a Punchline

Poems are perfect little power-packed punchlines when they wish to be (think limericks, people). A good example is Frank O’Hara’s “Why

I Am Not a Painter,” in which the

Robert Lee Brewer is senior editor of WD and author of The Complete Guide of Poetic Forms. narrator discusses why he’s a poet and not a painter. However, over the course of the poem, the poet reveals he’s written a series of poems that don’t mention orange (but were inspired by the color) called “ORANGES,” while the artist has created a painting that originally had sardines (that were since removed) called “SARDINES.” The set-up for readers is that they’re going to learn why the poet is not a painter, but the punchline is that their creative processes are very similar.

Play With Language

Wordplay is one of the main tools available for poets going back to the beginning of the written word (and most likely earlier). One of my favorite funny poems comes from Aaron Belz who wrote “The Love-Hat Relationship” that twists the idea of someone having a love-hate relationship with something. In his poem, the narrator thinks about relationships “based on love of one another’s hats.”

Play with words in your own poems by messing around with homophones, homographs, double entendres, and slight (but hilarious) misspellings. WD

SHARE YOUR POETIC VOICE: If you’d like to see your poem in the pages of Writer’s Digest, check out the Poetic Asides blog (WritersDigest.com/write-better-poetry/poetry-prompts) and search for the most recent WD Poetic Form Challenge.