RE: WHAT'S LONG AND HARD

I admit that it is not amongst the best in the canon of Biggus - but he received an email saying that he had a cherry and then went to the piece to discover it was not there. I have been away for a week and I think what has happened is this: an Editor has clicked the 'cherry picked' button instead of the 'read 'by' button. He/she has then realised their mistake and gone back and removed the cherry. In the interim Biggus has received an automatic email telling him that he has a cherry. He emails me to this effect. Once a cherry is awarded it cannot be rescinded. That is the rule. I re-instate his cherry. This upsets all sorts of people. Ho Hum.

This little poem is more like graffiti on a school desk than anything else, still I had a couple of minutes and half a cup of coffee so I decided to give it some thought. Which part of it is so offensive? Is the reference to sexual intercourse in itself sexist? Well I suppose some women do not have sex at all, others do not have sex with men, and there must be a fairly large category who don't enjoy it when they do. Perhaps if Biggus had written "some women" all would have been well. Perhaps it was the reference to things long and hard which caused the trouble. We do live in a society that studiously ignores the erect penis, but it remains a biological fact that, if not definitively "long and hard", certainly does tend to become longer and harder under the right stimulation. Then we might concede that some men also do not have sex, or do not have sex with women. Biggus needed to put at least one more "some" into his poem and perhaps a "sometimes" as well. So maybe it's not the thought of all the shagging that's the problem, maybe it's the ironing boards. The implication is that women iron and don't like it. In my experience women who don't like ironing don't iron and women who iron don't mind it that much, but Biggus' experience is that of someone from an older generation, and perhaps when the world was solely in black and white many women did feel compelled to iron and moan about it. Biggus needed to make a specific point about a specific era and all would have been well. So is it true or false that some women moan about the ironing and still do it? Is it true that some women moan with pleasure when in bed with a man whose penis is erect? Both of these statements are true and so Biggus' only mistake was to write as if we all live the same lives and do the same things. When I was little my Grandfather - who had been a teacher - used to feed a stray cat that came to our back door. The cat was jet black and I don't need to list the names my Grandfather used to call it. Did that make my Grandfather a terrible racist? No. He was born in 1919, he would never have been discriminatory with pupils or with people in general, he was just used to the standards, the mores and the idioms of another age. Anyway, there's a lot worse in the world than a joke about knobs and ironing boards - politically correct puritans who think they can change the world through censorship for example.

I bow to you, sir!

The only thing that seriously offends me about Biggus is that he can write a poem that consists of two rhyming couplets and fail to get anywhere near scansion with either of them. Very much enjoyed the extended analysis, though.

What is long and hard and makes an ironing board moan? Another ironing board – they’re rude when left alone!

well. anyone who can churn out 15 poems a day doesn't spend too much time perfecting their work. that said, Biggus isn't all that bad, I just find his writing to be crap. every now and then he does manage something funny. but a snicker doesn't neccesarily earn a cherry.

Biggus is kind of like the flywheel in this place. Reliable, consistent, playfully acerbic, writes because he has to, big whip. Spend an hour in the greeting card aisle for real crap.

Just because I feel that Biggus sometimes wastes his talent and wit by not really reworking or trying hard enough, it doesn't mean that he is not to be valued. He often raises more than a smile with his witticisms. Besides, I am guilty enough of the same flaw... And I do hate intellectual snobbery, especially from writers. I studied 'The Canon' at University and did not enjoy most of my degree. Damn the Man! Save Writing!

"And I do hate intellectual snobbery, especially from writers. I studied 'The Canon' at University and did not enjoy most of my degree." Not clear what either of those things have got to do with Biggus. The criticism he gets on here isn't from Geoffrey Hill and JH Prynne, it's mostly from other people who are attempting to write accessible, humourous poetry and who don't think his stuff is very good. They may or may not be wrong - and there's no reason why Biggus should care either way as long as he enjoys what he does - but it's not intellectual or snobbish.

I agree somewhat with you bukharin, I doubt everyone who hates on biggus is jelous because they can't write humorous poetry, maybe they just don't like his work. But I think Biggus is good as doing what he does, and people's opinions of him certainlyt aren't snobbish

There is something homely about coming to the site and seeing three good ole works from Biggus. The recently added page wouldn't look quite right without them... now to start a forum thread rubbishing one of my poems and get a nice debate going about me.

' "And I do hate intellectual snobbery, especially from writers. I studied 'The Canon' at University and did not enjoy most of my degree." Not clear what either of those things have got to do with Biggus.' I was merely attempting to illustrate that 'good' is only ever subjective; that the 'good' agreed by the 'establishment' is, in my opinion, not always good. But then, I've been labelled both intellectual and snobbish... And I was leaping clumsily to the defence of Biggus. There was no need to be quite so snide.

He's an institution.

Whether a couplet rhymes and scans isn't a subjective measure. Whether you like it, or feel it has value, is. I don't think 'good' is purely subjective, not really. That's just the way that you comfortably agree to disagree when someone doesn't like something you like in polite conversation. Some bits of writing are better than other bits of writing, in the same way that while all things with four legs and a seat are chairs, some of them are more comfortable to sit on or more exciting to look at. That might not influence how much you like them, or how much you value them, but it's true that some pieces of writing are just better at being pieces of writing. Cheers, Mark

Poetry or sexist crap? That looks like the sort of thing I might have an opinion on but I can't locate the poem in question.

Uncomfortable chairs are usually good for you to sit on because they improve your posture. Or so I was told as a child.

I had to find out what the fuss was about. Not much apparently. I admit to being amused by some of the better public lavatory offerings. This belongs with those I think but I suspect biggus already knows that.