Poetry Snark's New Gig, or Snoop Doggy Doggerel

When I outed myself by doing an interview that was broadcast by Foetry, the last thing I expected was to wind up getting hired by someone. But that's exactly what has happened.

I expected that my friends who already knew that I was Poetry Snark would listen to the interview and tell me what they thought. That has happened. I expected my "not-friends" to listen and eventually out me somewhere, crowing proudly about their "revelation" (oblivious to the fact that the interview was in part a publicity stunt, and that I had already announced right here that I expected to be recognized). That has happened. And I expected that a certain someone obsessed with me and my site would start another flame war and embarrass himself again by coming apart at the seams publicly. That, delightfully, has also happened.

But I didn't expect that the opinion editor of the local paper would hunt me down to discuss a regular column. That's right poetry fans, an editor from the Iowa City Press-Citizen sat down with me over beers at a local pub last night, and we concocted a new feature for their opinion page: vive le snark!

I won't be snarking poets--not even Iowa City has a strong enough public market for that. Rather, I will be contributing a regular piece of doggerel verse snarking politics and current events. It seems the Press-Citizen wants something like Calvin Trillin's "Deadline Poetry" column in The Nation (except they don't want to pay Trillin's syndication fee). It may sound weird, but in ultra-lefty, poetry-friendly Iowa City, it actually makes commercial sense.

So starting soon, yours truly will be revealing Calvin Trillin to be the two-bit hack he really is, as I out-snark him with my mad rhyming skills. My first little bit of Snoop Doggy Doggerel will be printed in a week or so. I'm not sure if these things will be posted regularly on their website, but I'll try to get at least a couple of them posted so that I can link to them from here. Meanwhile, if you are reading this and you live in Iowa City, keep an eye on the opinion section, and let us know what you think. Snark away! For as W.B. "monkey glands" Yeats said in his overrated puff-piece "Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen":

Snark Snarkers after that
That would not lift a hand maybe
To help good, wise or great
To bar that foul storm out, for we
Traffic in snarkery.