by Dr. Karen Elliot

Doctoral Thesis on the Klown in Poetry
 
 

Pirate Enclave/ Rumpus Society 
Joint Communiqué III
 

            
I’m not sure when it was that clowns started to be thought of as evil creatures, like leprechauns, though it makes sense. A clown essentially is designed to make fun of the human being (and by extension some theologians argue that they lampoon god.) At the same time wearing a mask to hide true identity like a criminal. I think this is a metaphor for the connection between clowns and poets. Poets also make fun of human beings, every line of a good poem should turn humanity over for sound spank. Poetry itself is a mask often donned to obscure the identity of the narrator, and good poets, like creative criminals, and clowns, live outside of society.

“I started dressing up as a clown to read my poetry in 1969. Mom owned a clown costume... she engendered a spirit of pageantry that causes my stomach to turn at parades, award shows & circuses.” --Jimmy Jazz

Clown imagery doesn’t appear in Jazz’s work (at least in the way it reoccurs throughout Dylan’s lexicon) but the Klown as Idea does. For example at the end of his piece “Ugly Gray Dog Balls” he stretches the theme of catharsis in his usual over the top manner to the point where he, at least as narrator, is a clown to be taunted, laughed at, for the reader with a low self image. 

He writes: I am now your clown.

In another poem toward the end of his chapbook Fat Free Lard he writes “I Am Still Your Clown” as if to remind the reader who has traveled through the book, and perhaps through life, that the narrator is still there for them to toss pies at.

“It's hard for me to believe that it's been six years since I first met Jimmy Jazz, American punk lit's most serious merrymaker. I already knew and loved the schizoid energy, wit and warmth of his writing, but knew not the man. Then I found myself in San Diego, in the middle of an exhausting tour, walking towards the Museum of Death, tired, beat-up inside, and trying to wake myself up for the performance I was about to give there. As the publisher and I approached the venue, I looked at the man standing on the sidewalk outside, and I stopped walking. "This can not be happening," I told the publisher. "There's some lunatic in a clown suit standing right outside the door." The publisher nodded serenely. "Yeah," he said. "That'll be Jimmy Jazz --Barry Graham

“Businessmen should be required to wear clown suits in the downtown area between the hours of 9 and 5.” --Jello Biafra

The spiritual center of the Poetry the Klown Movement (PKM) seems to be the prank elevated to High Art. While the shtick of clowns in the circus setting is iconic and cliché, the reinvention of poets as clowns lends both castes a new vitality.

“I remember staggering into Joe & Andy’s dive in Lemon Grove, the hippies musta been throwin’ another political benefit because this punk in a clown suit--red wig, yellow shoes-- jumped off the bar with a microphone in his hand, got in my face and started screaming, ‘Jesse’s Mom Beats him! Jesse’s dad beats her!’ over & over. It scared the shit out of me.” -- Anonymous Bargoer

“During a reading for the Pacific Review Literary Magazine hosted at SDSU, Jimmy Jazz was invited to do a small performance of his work. Needless to say, he performed! 

It was my job to organize the event and be there on site to ensure all presenters knew their place and time. Prior to this reading, I was unfamiliar with Jazz’s style of presentation, and took the word of another artist that he was worth the risk. So, the day of the performance, as the minutes rolled closer to the reading, and as the audience began to filter in for their extra credit English class points, a friend of Jazz’s came to me in an angel costume, wings, stockings and all, and assured me he was there and ready to go. 

[Jazz had been holding a sign outside that read Poetry Reading This Way>>>]

We announced his name and out comes Jazz from the back of the hall like a shot out of hell in a clown costume. He was screaming through clown makeup and climbing on audience chairs with his big floppy clown shoes, bellowing curse-strewn criticisms about the nature of literary criticism. And, if I remember correctly, he made harsh remarks directed at the Pacific Review. 

I found it amusing, and even a little important in its attempt to be chaotic. The rant seemed to throw the system slightly out of whack momentarily. However, if the rant was more focused and polished, if Jazz’s statement was more resonant, and the costume more relative, I may have thought it successful. It’s possible the point was lost in the hoopla.”
-- Lauren Fitzgerald

At the Café Banality. Most poets do not understand the inchoate nature of the clown in every poet. Humor is conducive, not only to emotional centers in the brain, but to memory. In five years many poets will probably wear clown suits when they mount a stage to read, in the same way that adults adopted baggy clothes five years after giving hip-hop kids crap for it. The danger of wearing a clown suit without undertanding the history of the Poet as Klown is real, but the ironic embarrasment may in fact prove beneficial for many aspiring asrtists. One who affects a clownish aspect unintentionally cannot benefit from the stored energy of PKM.

A local SD writer who understands that The First Dialectic of Entertainment is subversion, a fundamental principle underlying PKM, is a journalist called Ed Decker. If the first ‘performer’ stands up at the microphone, he’ll bring a desk from his office. If you speak with too much breath in your voice, he’ll flip the table on you and speak in his own voice. In a recent performance he began on the floor under the desk and finished with an accomplice (sometimes called a shill) in a rubber ‘Barzilla’ mask lending visual imagery to his spoken word. 

The question becomes what do we do with the audience once they are in the palm of our hand?

One is tempted to recall Malcolm X’s famous aphorism, yet the contemporary poet has also forgotten the point of his struggle, and lost sight of the power in his oratory. 

The thesis Poets are Clowns, or in mathematical terms Poet = Clown, can be deconstructed in many ways. Contemporary poetry (and by extension Art) itself lacks meaning, is silly and principally functions as a media of entertainment no different than television which replaced the Saturday matinee which replaced the Sunday sermon. Certainly I could argue that clowns are actors (and if you saw the Golden Globe Awards with Dick Clark, the inverse is also true) and it would also be simple to show that preachers are in fact… clowns. Each puts on his costume, reads his lines and passes the basket. Considering our current president, politicians also exhibit clown-like behavior. Yet leaving it on this rudimentary level doesn’t sit well, if creative intellectual inquiry is our goal. A strong poet is conscious of his inner-clown (coulrophobia = weakness.) Poets are clowns, Poets are clowns, Poets are clowns. How many times to I have to say it before I convince you? Poetry, as it exists in the USA (the best country in the world) is trivial, a trick to make us laugh, but easily forgotten as it requires no action from the consumer. Just like the TV demands to be on even if no one is in the room, just like contemporary church requires only a modicum of attendance and tithe.

“Can’t sleep, clowns will eat me.” Bart Simpson

“She builds you up to just put you down, what a clown” Nico & The Velvet Underground
 
 
 
 

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