2024 Week 43: Everyone’s a critic.

Last week’s blog was about showing your creation to the world and not knowing how it will be reviewed. Because I’ve been preparing a talk on Don’t Call Me Ishmael, I was reminded of the following scene.

It’s from the second book of the Ishmael trilogy. Ishmael and the boys are in Grade Ten where their favourite teacher Miss Tarango is attempting to teach Shakespearean Sonnets.

Orazio Zorzotto (also known as The Razz, Razza or The Razzman) writes a love poem – a sonnet of dubious appropriateness entitled Hot or What!

It ends with this rhyming couplet:

You fry my brain. You turn me on.
You light my fuse. Cos YOU DA BOMB!

See what I mean about dubious appropriateness?

Orazio (whose whole persona is of dubious appropriateness) of course thinks it’s a masterpiece and eagerly shares it with the members of the debating team. This is a mistake.

He receives his first review from Ignatius Prindabel. It’s not what you would call ‘glowing’.

Enjoy! Or perhaps not. I’ll wait till the reviews come in …

Throughout the reading Prindabel had sat glowering at Razza like a hawk. Now he looked from Bill to Scobie and from Scobie to me, pushed back his hair on his high forehead and frowned. Since it was obvious that no one else was going to speak, Ignatius Prindabel decided to give us his considered opinion.

‘Well that’s just crap.’

Razza’s eyes widened and his jaw fell open like it had dislocated. ‘What?’

‘That poem – it’s just crap.’

‘Wh … what are talking about Prindabel?’ Razza said looking around for support. ‘It rocks – it’s a wicked sonnet man, just like the ones Shakespeare wrote – it’s got fourteen lines and everything.’

‘Yes it has,’ Ignatius agreed, ‘fourteen lines of crap.’

‘What would you know about poetry anyway, Prindabel? It’s got all the stuff Miss talked about – it’s got your rhyme, your quatrains, your repetition, your imagery … man, it’s even got similarities and a rhyming cufflink.’

‘Well Orazio, I admit that I may not be an expert on poetry but I know crap when I hear it. Oh, by the way, I think you might mean “similes” not “similarities” … and about your rhyming couplet, explain this to me; if she’s the bomb like you say in the poem, then shouldn’t you be lighting her fuse rather than the other way around or was that just an example of your mixed metaphor?’

Razza threw up his hands in disgust. ‘Man have you been tongue-kissing the USB ports on your computer again Prindabel? Haven’t you ever heard of “poetic licence”?’

‘And what’s that precisely? A licence to kill poetry?’

Bill, Scobie and I exchanged a few secret glances. For once in his life Prindabel actually seemed to be holding his own against Razza.

‘You know what I think your problem is Prindabel? You’ve got too many calculators stuck up your arse to appreciate the subtleties of language. You talk about crap,’ Razza said. ‘Well I’ll tell you what’s crap, Prindabel …’

It was the moment of truth. If the Champ was going to avoid an upset, then now was the time to produce the killer punch. Razza’s eyes flicked around everyone at the table, then they carefully lined Ignatius up.

‘You’re crap – that’s what crap!’

Ignatius let Razza’s barb sail harmlessly passed his chin then he turned casually to Scobie. ‘Did you know, that if you put a group of monkeys in a room with computers and keyboards and leave them there for eternity, that it’s a mathematical fact that eventually, just by chance and the laws of probability, they’ll end up producing the entire works of Shakespeare.’

Razza groaned loudly. ‘And your point is Prindabel?’

‘No point really,’ Ignatius said, turning to face Razza, ‘I was just wondering how many minutes it would take a baboon with a crayon to come up with your poem.’

Razza went to speak but instead snatched his poem from the desk and stalked from the room. Ignatius locked his hands behind his head, put his feet up on the desk and rocked back on his chair smiling crookedly at us.

‘You know what?’ he said happily. ‘I’m beginning to really like this poetry stuff.’