Once upon a time in America, there lived a peanut farmer and known Georgian named James Earl Carter. He became world-famous because he was the first American to parlay his goober habit into several other glamorous careers. And we do mean several; this man has changed identities more times than, uh … who’s popular these days? The David Bowie and the Beatles combined? David Bowie plus the Beatles and that Madonna, plus a chameleon and Lady Gaga, let’s say. Because that’s how multi-faceted this “Jimmy” Carter is — he even writes sexytime poetry!
Many decades ago, Jimmy Carter was governor of the Goober State of Georgia. Then he became an American President, but for one term only because everyone grew to hate him for one reason or another — the economy, Iran, UFOs, sweaters? Maybe even Iranian sweaters, which are totally not the going attire in July.
After the President gig, he became some sort of human rights/anti-poverty activist. He seems to spend most of his time infuriating people for noticing that horrible things are horrible and writing books. Actually, most people know Jimmy Carter writes books. But few people in the American ex-president book market know that he sometimes writes sexually-charged POETRY?
Now, your book person was hesitant to review Carter’s poetry, because 1) this is the Internet, and how topical is Jimmy Carter these days?, plus 2) no one in America cares about poetry anymore. Also: poetry is super-easy to write. For Proof, look at this erotic lesbian couplet I just wrote:
She dreams of parallelograms
when she gets Sarah’s telegrams.
Anyway, Jimmy Carter has been writing poetry for years now, and you can find many examples in a book titled Always a Reckoning and Other Poems. The former President would have you believe that he writes poems on topics like “People,” “Places,” and “Politics” in a style that is more or less plain, earnest prose broken up into lines.
The reality is that most of the poems are allegories about deviant sex. The collection opens with an ode to some sex goddess named “Rachel.” It begins:
My young life, shaped by those I loved,
felt the gentle touch of Rachel Clark,
our neighbor on the farm, whose husband, Jack,
cared for the barn and did the kind of work
that we boys most admired.
I know. You can already see where this is going. While Jack is away minding the ho’s, Rachel begins an affair with the young poet, and the whole thing ends with Rachel and Jack turning the poor lad into a round-the-clock concubine, feeding him an endless stream of Turkish coffee to keep him awake and forcing him to engage in all manner of dildo performance art.
Other poems are less symbolic. “Miss Lillian Sees Leprosy for the First Time,” is rather direct, even in-your-face, about the charms of some girl named Leprosy:
…. Love grew between
us, so that, later, when I kissed her lips
I didn’t feel unclean.
HOT. This is sexier than Sappho and Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” combined. As you can see, it also pulls off that Love-at-First-Sight thing, much like when Romeo sees Juliet for the first time.
The point here is that Always a Reckoning is ideal for reading under the covers with a flashlight. Jimmy Carter is a true sex bard, a lyre-plucking farmer of smut.
Always a Reckoning and Other Poems by Jimmy Carter. Crown, 144 pages.
{ 44 comments }
Reading his poems made me sin in my poetic heart.
Well, now we know who he was lusting after in his heart.
A full post on Jimmy Carter and sex, with know “I’ve lusted in my heart” jokes?
…. Love grew between
us, so that, later, when I kissed her lips
I didn’t feel unclean.
That, and the fact that she douched regularly.
Carter Haikus
Crazed Rabbit swims
Toward my small fishing boat
Presidency Done
Where did you go Bill?
Libya? Damn I need a drink
Only Billy Beer?
[re=617847]JMP[/re]: We trust you guys will “know” the basic political cliches and can apply them yourselves.
Someone please photoshop Jimmay jammming with Weird, Gilly, and the Spiders from Mars.
This will put Jimmy up there in the same league with other sex symbols like Don Knotts and Carrot Top.
Fucking Newt called Jimmy the worst President ever the other day. I swear he needed to get his teeth tapped. But anyway you know what Newt no he wasn’t the greatest President but he was hardly the worst, believe me the list is long and distinguished and the name is usually followed by a (R) like Nixon (R) Hoover (R) i could go on and on but Jimmy is more of a human being you will ever be you piece of rat filth
If you can’t sing the poem to the tune of “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” like you can with all of Emily Dickinson’s poems, I ain’t interested.
Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality
Needs more peanuts and falafel loofahs.
[re=617861]BklynIlluminati[/re]: Right on. I’d like to meet Prez Carter.
Jesus H. Christ. I hate poetry.
jimmy carter can habitate in my humanity any time.
Man I like that parallelogram couplet.
[re=617862]Katydid[/re]: Amazing, now I feel justified in loathing her poetry!
President Carter is a hero of mine – he’s never stopped trying to make the world a better place. But please, “Jimmy Carter” and “erotic poetry” are two concepts that should never, ever share a sentence.
Gave the canal
back to the browns
Gave the office
back to the clowns
burma shave
apologies, grandpa
I’ve toasted the man many times for this reason…
http://www.tressugar.com/Jimmy-Carters-Unintentional-Legacy-Beer-Making-2876645
[re=617878]Limeylizzie[/re]: It is amazing, it seems to work with every Emily Dickinson poem. I guess it’s because she wrote so many (only?) 8-6-8-6 quatrains.
Silly Greer! Carter was a one-term President because he was afraid of a killer swimming rabbit!
In hindsight, THIS might be the rabbit that attacked him (Rachel Clark)…
http://www.babeland.com/rabbit-vibrator.html
[re=617862]Katydid[/re]: Also the theme to Gilligan’s island. For realz.
Jimmy Carter was never a peanut farmer, dammit. He inherited the family peanut warehouse, which makes him a bidnessman, like George W. Bush with less failure.
Despite his legacy as a middleman squeezing profits from the poor farmer, Jimmy seems pretty cool in person. I saw him up close, walking through Manuel’s Tavern one time, during the ’96 Olympics. His “security detail” was a retired state trooper, and he returned everybody’s, “Hey, Mr. President!”
I hear you wouldn’t want to work for him, though. Micromanaging hardass as a boss.
[re=617856]Ken Layne[/re]: Goddamn homophones.
[re=617861]BklynIlluminati[/re]: Dubya is worst president ever; it’s obvious now and will go down in history forever as such. You don’t like him, Newt doesn’t like him, nobody liked him, but Carter is the greatest ex-president ever. Even when he was still alive, you didn’t see Reagan getting summoned thither and yon to validate the authenticity of elections in third-world shit holes.
Fourth day, five day marathon,
We’re moving like a parallelogram,
Don’t move, I’ll shut the door and kill the lights,
I guess I’ll see you all on the ice,
I should be tired,
And all I am is wired,
Ain’t felt this good for an hour,
Motorhead, remember me now, Motorhead alright
What? No Carter limmericks? Philistines!
Parallelograms are pretty softcore…the rhombus is the real, hard XXX shit. So hot.
[re=617922]SmutBoffin[/re]: But if you’re really kinky, only a kite can do it for ye.
workin’ on a sex farm….
[re=617861]BklynIlluminati[/re]: Was Newt the first person to greet Hank Aaron at home plate after #715? Did the Allman Brothers ever play a party celebrating Newt’s inauguration as anything? Fuck Newt and the fuckstick he rode in on.
[re=617876]Panquake[/re]: Got me awful worked up, too. Still not buying this “Greer Mansfield” business, but if that’s her (?) story . . .
[re=617861]BklynIlluminati[/re]: George W. Bush………Worst EVER!
Why, fuck my eyes! I’ve never seen anything so perfectly decadent!
Sarah sends telegrams — the 19th century’s internet! Forget this blogging, I’ve gotta get to Western Union!
WASSUP SARAH STOP MUST C U STOP
Who will set these sonnets to music? Wilco?
[re=617862]Katydid[/re]: Believe it or not, just a few days ago I found myself defending Emily Dickenson’s poetry in one of those idle literary arguments that drunken slacker intellectual elitists sometimes have. Now I feel…unclean.
[re=617915]WIDTAP[/re]: There once was a Prez’dent from Georgia
Who’s penchant for lust would engorge ya.
While implementing detente
he’d be fucking your aunt
and cold making up poems just to torture ya.
I took some license with that last line, but basically it scans…
Old news for those who read
Just a single Jimmy screed
There once was a man from Plains, Georgia
Instead of commands, he implored ya’
Stagflation, malaise
And hares who were crazed
The cracker-talk finally just bored ya’
Poetry does still exist, but one has to wrest it from the “poets.” There are fine things sometimes even in the pages of Poetry magazine, but politics are always more frenzied, the less there is at stake, and there is absolutely nothing at stake in the world of poetry, so, naturally, the entire business is faddish, cliquish, and exclusive. Again, good poetry exists, but more or less in spite of poets.
On the other hand, when Jimmy Carter, or even Jimmy Stewart, writes poetry, it’s alright. The man is highly educated, and the lines aren’t going to have the compression or precision of a poet’s, but they’ll probably have more experience and moment than some fey jackass writing about writing a poem about his cancer diagnosis.
(I thought he was a good president. Whenever anyone says he was bad, I ask what, exactly, he did that was bad. “The economy. Interest rates were high.” “And that was his fault?” “Uhhh.” “Ok, the Iranian hostages.” “And that was his fault?” “Uhh, inflation!” “And what did he do to cause that?” “Uhhhh.” In other words, the “Jimmy Carter was a bad president” is just like “Sarah Palin is a star”: it’s a media story, an instant verdict, a summary for lazy people.)
[re=617862]Katydid[/re]: Thanks, thanks, bunches for that. Now, I will never be able to ready Emily D. again without hearing that song.
Thanks.
:::Loading Ruger Mk II .22 cal. with suppressor barrel:::
Hey, can I show you something in my library out back?
Hi George, you forgot to mention his disasterous arms negotiations with the Soviets, every kiloton of which was *completely* his fault.
[re=618613]Obamas Left Testicle[/re]: Nuclear arms reduction.
Yeah, they were mad about that at the time.
The ReaganRevolushunaries complained actually about 1) “making us weak” in nukes (and then Reagan did the same), 2) “Allowing the evil Soviet Union to get a foothold in the Western hemisphere” in the form of not intervening in a democratic election in Nicaragua, and we saw what Reagan did to “fix” that, and how well it worked, 3) “He gave away the Panama Canal” by actually, you know, honoring the actual, um, treaty, and Bush took care of that.
Each one of these is a real minority point of view, and each is fringe, but they were able to march all over the place because the economy was poor due to “stagflation,” which was due to an external factor in our economy, oil, increasing in price regardless of our economic measures. This is how you get “worst president, ever,” Republican style.
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