"maybe you need to be offended"

I believe that's from a Suicidal Tendencies song from way back. Showing the punk and metal roots here. Represent. Woo.

So, anyway, it occurs to me (and this is just a suggestion) that those of you, any of you, who have been recently offended by a certain blogger-poet's reading(s), might want to check out 3leggedcat. Put things in perspective. Fix you right up.

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And maybe something like 3leggedcat will not strike you as offensive because it's just words. You know? It's not in your face. On paper, we can always claim that it's not really a person behind all that--it's just a "persona." When, however, confronted with the real thing, we can become uncomfortable. I think a lot of what poetry MUST do is cause a little discomfort. It's good for us. It makes us think. American Idol is doing country songs tonight, and you know what? I think I'm gonna watch it, as loathe as I am to subject myself to what I imagine will be pretty offensive performances.

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In the manuscript of the recent Mister-Robinson chapbook "Here's to You," was a poem that didn't make it into the final book. It was an "offensive" poem. And on some level, it was meant to be offensive. In fact a line in the poems reads "Tony thinks that this poem might offend someone"--that poem did not make it into the book (for slightly different reasons than its potential to offend) but a few of the early readers of the manuscript actually praised the poem, said they didn't find it offensive. I wonder if they would have felt the same way if they had encountered it in performance first rather than on the page. Something to think about.