Write a really funny poem about the state Show me

My guest this weekend on Poetry from Daily Life is William Trowbridge, who lives in Lee’s Summit, Missouri. Bill says he was late to writing poetry. He was studying for his doctoral compositions when he came across a poem by Howard Nemerov that made him want to write a poem, even though he was studying to be a scholar of American literature, specializing in modern American fiction. “But I continued writing poems,” he says, “and I liked it so much that I gradually became a poet, studying the leading modern poets and using the ‘monkey see, monkey do’ method of learning the art and craft. instead of enrolling in a master’s degree in creative writing. I guess that’s the ‘one fact’ about me.” Two of Trowbridge’s current favorite books are “Central Air: Poems” by George Bilgere and “Only as the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems” by Dorianne Laux. ~ David L. Harrison

Most of my favorite writers of poetry or prose write in what is called the serious-comic mode, which involves something that is comical on the surface and serious underneath. A humorous voice is important because comedy is an essential element of the human condition. And, as poet Thomas Lux wrote, “I believe one uses humor/satire to help combat the darkness.”

As Missouri Poet Laureate, I was asked to write a Missouri poem. Since many of the state poems I had read were similar in tone, I thought I would try something different, of course, in the seismic mode.

Unofficial Missouri Poem

You won’t find 76 trombones.

in this poem (that was Iowa);

no speeches about rolling rivers,

or greetings to the emerald pastures,

majestic peaks or resplendent horizons,

Although we have our share of each,

not to mention thirty-four types

of plastic worms in the world

largest bait shop, or the train station

where Pretty Boy & Co filmed it

with the law, or towns like Cooter,

Cockroach, Enough, Licking, Stingy,

and Frankenstein, along with Peculiar,

so called because the state said

the name had to be that or “unique”

— and the grave of Harry, who shot

MacArthur because “he wasn’t going to

let the sobbing resign itself to me” and

license plate with a blue bird

you have to follow closely to see and

Climate that can wash your house.

to the next county or sing it

to sleep on a soft May night and where

the state rock is something called

“Mozarkite” and bathtubs with feet

that resemble animal paws are against

the law, and where 15,000 souls

crowd annually to the city of Nixa

for Sucker Day to eat your fill

from that tasty bottom feeder, and

where the immortal Satchel Paige

first batters fooled with the

“hesitation tone.” is the birthplace

by Mark Twain, Jesse James

(and the coward Robert Ford),

Chuck Berry, Tennessee Williams,

Charlie Parker, Josephine Baker,

Joseph Pulitzer, Omar Bradley,

Belle Starr, T.S. Eliot, Calamity Jane,

Willie “The Rat” Cammisano,

and JC Penney.

Add to all that

the largest nut in the world, the big one

shoe made entirely of shoes,

chicken cooked from scratch

Car, the smallest cathedral in the world,

Bonnie and Clyde’s ambush

Apartment, the largest in the world.

Concrete soccer ball, Jesse James

Duster of Death,

Walt Disney’s dream

Tree and barn, the grave.

by Pete Kibbie’s Foot, the home

of Rolls Released, the world

largest fork, that of Dental Health

Theater, a giant concrete turtle

park, the largest chigger in the world,

Cowboy Muffler Man, the man of the world

larger ball of rope (not twine),

and The adventure of nuclear waste

Trail and Museum.

if you think

You’ve found a place that can boot.

more melodies in your inner banjo,

show me.

(From “Wear This, Please: New and Selected Poems”)

William Trowbridge’s tenth collection of poetry, “Father and Son,” was published by Wayne State College Press in April. He is a faculty mentor in the low-residency Master of Writing program at the University of Nebraska-Omaha and was Missouri Poet Laureate from 2012 to 2016. For more information, see his website. williamtrowbridge.net.

This article originally appeared in the Springfield News-Leader: Poetry of Everyday Life: Writing about Missouri and a Giant Fork