September 21, 1998

The Porn Principle of Poetry

Now, most of you are having quite a fit over the title of this mailing for two reasons: One, it mentions poetry, and two, what the hell does have porn have to do with poetry? Actually, there is quite an amazing connection.

What is a poem? Well, it is a structural, phonemic, and semantic representation of the Gestaltian principle that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and elicits a behavioral, emotional, and physical response.

What does that mean? Bupkis, pure bupkis (except to English majors).

There is no easy way to describe what a poem is. We can, however, explore characteristics we feel might be inherent to a poem. The porn principle is such a characteristic.

The Porn Principle consists of taking any fruit or vegetable and saying it along with the word porn, e.g. Porn & Apple, Porn & Plum, Porn & Beans, etc. Then, you consider not only how well the words sound together, but also the semantic/symbolic meaning and how well the words look structurally together.

Now, to illustrate this point, consider Porn & Plum. These words sound very pleasant together, rolling off the tongue in quick succession. The also look well together… same number of letters, same initial letter. Finally, I find the words Porn & Plum, Porn & Plum, Porn & Plum, etc. very fun to say. I would say this combination works quite well together.

Furthermore, let's look at Porn & Banana. This time, there's a very powerful symbolic connotation between porn and banana. Freud would approve. However, I do not find the words to look well together. The repetitions of A's in banana conflicts with the single-syllableness of porn. The words also do not sound well very pleasant together. There is discordance and roughness in the way they sound. Thus, I would conclude that the quality of porn and the phallic fruit banana is limp at best.

We can go on with other fruit and vegetables. I recommend looking at beans, corn, pineapple and kiwi. However, I want to emphasize the point of all this. What we have been doing is word games. We took words and saw how well they fit together in three different ways: sound, appearance, and meaning. This is the essence of poetry… wordplay.

Comments:

• me like poetry now.
  -- Ray