FriedadhWhat the

This Frieda and D.H. Lawrence photograph reminds me of this Sonny & Cher photograph, which is also a play on the fact that Sonny bamboozled Cher into thinking his name Bono was shortened from Bonaparte. Those crazy kids.

So anyway, Cher was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last month and is creating a sensation this week with her new memoir and so  what is the first thing I want to do after after all this? I want to do a poetry post. I’m literally two months behind blogging about Cher events and I’m itching to talk about this topic instead.

Why is that?

Well, for one thing, the list of Cher stuff has become somewhat overwhelming. It will surely take me four months just to catch up on the two months of activity. That makes me sleepy just thinking about it.

But also I’m really enjoying it all and the idea of blogging about it is like putting a cap on it and moving on. I’m not ready to wrap it all up just yet.

And then there’s the fact that the poetry side of my life is the yen to the yang of my fandom of pop culture. And I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, especially in light of recent political events and my sudden lack of desire to be a writer in this world anymore. Considering the things most people care about. I suddenly feel a great urge to draw in. I don’t really want to be a tormented poet in a tormented world. I’ve always wanted to be a happy poet in a happy world.

But this year has been unprecedented,  full of hives and worries and pending departures and disappointments and a long, slow heartbreak. I’m just wondering what’s it all for, these little blog posts in the backwater of a rapidly, putrefying Internet and people preferring when poems are written by A.I.  Oh, and speaking of the Internet, my job. That hasn’t been a beacon of wellbeing either on multiple levels (see hives above).

And speaking of that, in April some poet colleagues of mine recommended I remove my online experiments due to A.I. concerns, so those will be moving behind a password wall. So depressing, all of it.

And I can’t resolve any of those issues right now. But I do know one thing: the poetry blog helps me be a Cher fan and the Cher blog keeps up my interest in poetry. And that has always been true.

When writing about Cher or pop culture and it all becomes too ridiculous, turning to write about poetry feels very satisfying. At least the poets are charging respectable reprint fees and are not insisting people avoid eye contact in rooms with them.

But then when poetry starts to take itself too seriously (which doesn’t take very long), I move back over to Cher and pop culture. At least they’re making some money over there as pop stars.

But OK maybe there’s too much money over there. Poets aren’t getting exposed in sex trafficking scandals. (Well, except for maybe Byron.)

But poets can be very annoying and competitive considering how low those stakes are on their side. The egos certainly don’t match their bank accounts.

You see how this goes. It’s very convenient, really.

Occasionally it’s delightful when Cher and poetry come together. Like when Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature and I could write about it on both of the blogs.

Or when Cher recites Rudyard Kipling’s “If” poem.

Throughout the years I’ve found Cher in quite a few poems:

  1. “La Morena and Her Beehive Hairdo” by Anita Endrezze
  2. “Nature Poem” by Chen Chen and “Thirteen Ways of Looking at Cher” by Margaret McCarthy
  3. “Cher” by Dorianne Laux
  4. “Sure You Can Ask Me a Personal Question” by Diane Burns
  5. Joni Mitchell lyrics that seem to reference Cher when she lived with David Geffen.
  6. The Cher and Muhammad Ali Poem from The Sonny & Cher Show, Episode #30
  7. My glee at witnessing Joy Harjo reference Cher in her one-woman show.
  8. Cher referenced in Ordering the Storm: How to Put Together a Book of Poems.
  9. A poem about Georgia O’Keefe that is Cher-relevant.
  10. The Armenian Poets

Or Cher playing Rusty Dennis in the movie Mask trying to avoid hearing her son Rocky’s poem.

Here is the poem:

These things are good:
ice cream and cake,
a ride on a Harley,
seeing monkeys in the trees,
the rain on my tongue,
and the sun shining on my face.

These things are a drag:
dust in my hair,
holes in my shoes,
no money in my pocket
and the sun shining on my face.

Watch Eric Stoltz as Rocky read the poem in the movie.