CRIME POETRY

Am I the only one here who likes crime poems? Here's (below) the best one I know of.  When I was a kid it came with my board game, "Clue." I don't know the author's name.

Nice, huh? It's robust simplicity begs comparison with Service's "Dangerous Dan McGrew." It's so playful and unpretentious...so delightfully unmodern.  For comparison here's (below) a ponderous contemporary crime poem:

My beef with this poem (above) is that it saves the true meaning for the end. That's such a silly, modern thing to do. Apparently, the poet isn't inspired by the thrill of the chase. At the end we discover that he's only interested in detection as a metaphor for a sad comment on life.

My advice to all poets is to avoid melancholy zingers at the end of what you write. Avoid the temptation to bait and switch. Let the poem be about what attracted the reader to it in the first place. If there's a subtext or a secondary meaning let it be made by the stylistic zeal embedded in the writing.

POETRY CORNER AGAIN!

Here's a poem I liked when I was a kid. It's the poem that used to be on the inside of the box of the boardgame, "Clue."

What amazes me about those old boardgames is how successful they were in creating a mood and an identification with the characters. Haunted house and crime games actually gave me a creepy thrill. I thought the games were assembled in real haunted houses which had to be vacated before dark. A Yogi Bear game actually made me feel that somehow Yogi existed and was pleased to know that I was playing his game.

I missed the golden age of board games, which I think was in the 30s and 40s, but I can get a sense of them from museums and antique stores. They were designed to create a whole world when the box was opened. The graphics on the inside of the heavy lid, the weird proportions and textures of the trays, even the weight of the playing pieces was somehow important. A lot of thought seemed to go into giving the user a sensual rush on opening the box.

I saw a 30s Mickey Mouse cel painting kit behind glass in an exhibit on Wilshire. You won't believe this but the inside of the box actually conveyed the real atmosphere you'd encounter in an animation studio. In fact it was BETTER than the real atmosphere! How did they do that!?
Anyway, I'm running out of space. Here's the poem that gave me shivers when I was a kid:

ALL IN THE GAME
by Suzanne Weaver