Who doesn’t love bad poetry? As part of their new issue on poetry, 614 Magazine posted a new interview with Yonah Lavery, the winner of our Bad Poetry Contest. Now, we don’t mean to be down on poetry — and Ms. Lavery is one of our favorite people — but bad poetry just gets us giddy. And, fortunately, the interview doesn’t focus solely on Lavery’s poetry, although it does get in some good points about the nature of poetry — and the nature of calling something “Jewish”:
I told everyone! In fact, I thought about making business cards with “Worst Jewish Poet” on them. Yesterday I told a good friend of mine, a 90-year-old woman who used to be my landlady.
“Guess what, Miriam? I wrote the worst Jewish poem!”
“The worst Jewish poem? You?! You are writing a Jewish poem?”
To my amazement, she started hugging me and weeping tears of joy. “I am so proud of you! And now I have somebody to talk to!”
I was confused at her reaction but happy for the hugs, until she asked, “But tell me—when did you learn to speak Jewish?”
I felt so guilty that I’d given her false hope for a fellow Yiddish-speaker that I started learning Yiddish from her right away.
Check out 614‘s page to read the rest of the interview. And while you’re there, check out the rest of their features about poetry — including a new poem I wrote.
