{"id":190,"date":"2009-04-10T21:01:24","date_gmt":"2009-04-11T02:01:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/2009\/04\/10\/todd-boss-worst-work\/"},"modified":"2009-04-10T21:03:05","modified_gmt":"2009-04-11T02:03:05","slug":"todd-boss-worst-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/2009\/04\/10\/todd-boss-worst-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Todd Boss, “Worst Work”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"todd-boss.jpg\"<\/p>\n

\n

God wrote a poem about me,
\nwhich should have been flattering,
\nbut He let me read it,
\nand it was awful.<\/p>\n

And what was I going to say?
\nFar be it from me to hurt God’s feelings.
\n“Hey,” I said, “that’s pretty good.”
\nWell, it wasn’t completely untrue.<\/p>\n

What a bad word, good<\/i>,
\nwhere creation is concerned.<\/p>\n

I guess I might have given
\nthe great provocateur a fight,
\nbut I know too much
\nabout the art of making art,
\nI owe it to my faith the give the old fart
\nthe benefit of doubt.
\nIt’s hard to write a poem
\nabout someone you love,
\nfor one thing. And for another,
\nit’s hard to take a lesson from
\nyour own worst work.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Yellowjacket<\/i><\/a> is the debut collection from Todd Boss<\/a>, and you should definitely check out his website for more poems, as well as information on how filmmakers, composers, and other artists can collaborate with him on creative projects, like this animated adaptation of “Constellations” by Angella Kassube.<\/p>\n

<\/param><\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Hear Boss read “Don’t Come Home<\/a>” at Norton’s Poets Out Loud<\/i>, or “To Wind a Mechanical Toy<\/a>” at the Missouri Review<\/i> podcast. (The latter site also features his reading of “Yellowjacket.”). You can also read four poems<\/a> from Virginia Quarterly Review<\/i> or “To Be Alone Again in the Thick Skin<\/a>” (at Poetry Daily<\/i>), or “The Day Is Gray and the Lake<\/a>” (Carol Peters’ poetry blog).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

God wrote a poem about me, which should have been flattering, but He let me read it, and it was awful. And what was I going to say? Far be it from me to hurt God’s feelings. “Hey,” I said, “that’s pretty good.” Well, it wasn’t completely untrue. What a bad word, good, where creation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/beatrice.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}