Dumbing It Down - A Poem By Thomas Vaultonburg

As a poet, a good lesson I have learned over the years is to never evaluate the quality of your own work, especially immediately. I had read of an ancient poet, perhaps Ovid, whose advice to poets was to put your work in a drawer for five years before you ever even considered showing it to anyone.

This poem, "Dumbing It Down," was something I found written in a notebook years after I had first written it, and I loved it. I wondered why I hadn't thought it was good enough to include in the rotation of poems I was considering for the next book. Maybe I thought it was too facile.

Now I think of it as one of my favorite poems I have ever written.

Dumbing It Down

I dumbed it down.

I fed it McNuggets

And put it to sleep

With pop tunes.

I made it join

The Republican party.

I drugged it with

Cable television,

I bribed it with

Guilt-free sex

And threatened it

With religion.

I spent a lifetime

Beating it

Into submission and

The ungrateful bastard

Still writes this poem.

My fourth book, Submerged Structure

Update December 11, 2012: A local distributor just bought out the entire first printing of our children's book The Toughskin Rhinoceros Wrangler Company. So that feels pretty good, but means now I have to get cracking on the second printing.

I wish someone would buy out these poetry books, but that seems unlikely.