Poetry About Cats

A few years ago my husband accidentally ended up at a poetry reading. This was unpleasant for almost everyone involved, since my husband doesn't much care for poetry and poets tend to be scared of large angry men wearing camouflage. Also my husband is something of an asshole. This was a reading that featured poetry of the more deplorable sort, all flow and form and no content - the kind of reading where the audience snaps their fingers and nods, full of insight and benevolent enlightenment and benign sneers, as poets read about their exes and stare at their shoes.

After hearing about the depth of someone's soul for the umpteenth time my husband got up from his work (the reading had appeared around him while he was working on some technical drawings) and approached the microphone. He cleared his throat and this is what he said:

 "My cat peed in the corner.
Poor Kitty.
Poor Me.

My dad told me to clean it up.
I hate you dad.
Bad Kitty.
Poor Me."

He sat down to thunderous silence broken by nervous shuffling and a few half-hearted finger snaps. I was horrified.

"They were just reading their poetry - getting up there and making fun of them was mean," I said.
"But their poetry was awful," he replied.
"They weren't very good poets, but they were talking about things that meant something to them - they were sharing their feelings."
"So was I," he said, "I shared my feelings of annoyance with their bad poems by sharing a bad poem that I had written."
"But you invaded their activity, you broke the mood."
"Good," he said, "when they invaded my coffee shop they interrupted my mood. Why am I the bad guy?"
That did bring me up a little short. I tried one more thing: "but why did you have to make up a poem about cat piss?"
"Maybe cat piss is important to me. Maybe my cat is really important to me. What's wrong with a poem about a subject like cat piss if that subject speaks to the poet?"
"Well there's nothing wrong with it if you MEAN it, but you didn't mean anything there, you just wanted to make fun of them."
"No, I just wanted to let them know that their poetry was cat piss."
"You're an asshole."
"No, I'm a Dadaist and that was performance art. My medium was angry poets."
And I laughed. He may be an asshole, but at least he's a funny asshole.

But I was thinking about the whole episode recently and wondering why it still bothers and amuses me: I came to the realization that it sticks in my memory because poetry about cats is uniformly awful. I've been running into a lot of cat-based poetry recently and I'm sick of it.

We've had submissions of cat poetry for the magazine. My cat-obsessed friend wanted to know what I thought of her poems about her cats, and then wanted to know what I thought about her cats. At work we recovered a file for a client - it ended up being two-hundred pages of a prose-poetry novel about a cat with a Ph.D.

Fuck poetry about cats. Fuck cat people. On the way home from work today I saw a Prius with the license plate "MY2CATS". Hey cat people, let me let you in on a secret: nobody wants to hear about your cats. I'm sure they're adorable, I'm sure you love them, I'm sure they're little ladies an prim little gentlemen with the oh-so-tidy way they clean up after themselves, but no one gives a shit. Want an example? Go to Cracked.Com and look up Christina H. - she's a comedy writer whose column is called "Let Me Tell You About My Cats!", which is funny because she understands that no one ever wants to hear about anyone's cats. Want another example? Wordsworth was a really good poet, and here's a pretty goddamn bad poem he wrote about a cat:

That way look, my infant, lo!
What a pretty baby-show!
See the kitten on the wall,
sporting with the leaves that fall.
Withered leaves - one - two and three
from the lofty elder tree.
Though the calm and frosty air,
of this morning bright and fair.
Eddying round and round they sink,
softly, slowly; one might think.
From the motions that are made,
every little leaf conveyed
Sylph or Faery hither tending,
to this lower world descending.
Each invisible and mute,
in his wavering parachute.

But the Kitten, how she starts,
crouches, stretches, paws, and darts!
First at one, and then its fellow,
just as light and just as yellow.
There are many now - now one,
now they stop and there are none:
What intenseness of desire,
in her upward eye of fire!
With a tiger-leap half-way,
now she meets the coming prey.
Lets it go as fast, and then;
Has it in her power again.
Now she works with three or four,
like an Indian conjuror;
quick as he in feats of art,
far beyond in joy of heart.
Where her antics played in the eye,
of a thousand standers-by,
clapping hands with shout and stare,
what would little Tabby care!
For the plaudits of the crowd?
Over happy to be proud,
over wealthy in the treasure
of her exceeding pleasure!

You can find "The Kitten and the Falling Leaves" in lots of places, but I found that particular version at catquotes.com, which includes pages like "Cat Quotes - Several Hundred Quotes by Famous, anonymous, and other cat lovers" and "Famous Cat Lovers - NEW" and is where the Internet's nightmares come from.

Long story short, cats are like any other subject - if it gives you a noticeable erection you probably shouldn't write a poem in which the reader can sense that erection. Stop drooling over your subjects, it grosses readers out.

As a counter example, subtlety is a frequent component of strong poems.  Here's a Carl Sandburg poem that is not about cats:
The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

 "Fog" is about fog but touches on fog using imagery we all understand as it is associated with cats. Carl Sandburg's cat-boner is not visible here, nor is a fog-boner or any other kind of engorgement. See? Subtle.

 So anyway, shut up about cats, chill out about your subject, and aim for subtlety. Sorry to derail you all from my normal series (we're on to voice right now) but my cat died today and I wasn't feeling up to writing a thoughtful, considered blog. Coincidentally, if you've got a moment to spare you should totally google "I'm sad because my cat died today" and enjoy the unintentional hilarity.

Later dudes. Be excellent to each other.

Cheers,
      - Alli