Bumpersticker'd Ferrari

The following collection of poems represent the author's best attempts are writing and cultivating poems which continue the creative tradition of the "Seriously Funny" as defined in the anthology of the same name, edited by David Kirby and Barbara Hamby: "poems of artistic merit that contain elements of comedy" (xiii). While these is no narrative or thematic through-line between the poems, they are intended to tonally work together and hopefully culminate into a collection which is itself hilarious and emotionally substantive. The collection is broken down into three sections in which each has its own rough identity in terms of content and style. Each section has a title lifted from one of the poems it contains. In the first section, "The Royal Socket Wrenches," the poems all consist of one stanza. Additionally, in the spirit of writers such as Frank O'Hara, these poems are littered with pop culture references. The second section of the collection, "Notes of Stone Fruit and Oak," features poems more experimental in terms of both form and content. They seek to continue the surreal and comical tradition of James Tate. The third and final section of the collection, "Worcestershire Sauce," contains the poems which are the most personal to the life of the author, bringing in friends, family members, and other loved ones. Despite the aforementioned section breaks, it is the author's hope that the collection also works as a singular cohesive unit in which laughter and the poems' emotional substance coexist in a symbiotic relationship.