Towards a Poetics of Crap

Or, Variations on a Theme.

"You draw animals in a zoo while I go and do a poo". - Lars Empoli Crittenden

Shakespeare:
With quill in hand, dear father, thou wilt sit;
Marking out the bestiary of thy wit:
Whilst I atop the water closet will remain -
And force foul faeces from my buttocks twain!

Chaucer:
I bidde thou sitte, my father deare,
I canne nae lenger remaine hier
Butte dost thou bidde the fancies traine
To floweth free from outte thy brain.
& so: the Adder, Aspe & Asse,
The KRAKEN in the tight sea-passe,
Nae lesse the Sheepe & Milch-kine,
Thanne noble Bull, & Eagle & the Lion!
Neglect not thanne the seelie Worme,
As well, the Virus & cold Germe:
& Noblest Creature ever borne:
The most majestic UNICORNE!
& whilest thou draw - why! if it should happe
To please the Lord - I'll take a crappe.

Whitman:
Draw!
Let the wild creatures of the zoo leap, crawl, fly and flee free across your page!
Let freedom reign across history's page!
Let the ink flow!
Let the imagination run free!
Let the heart run free!
Draw, father!
Draw!

I will sit!
Sit!
While the world turns, this I vow, I will sit
Sit with all my heart and soul and mind!
I will happily sit! - Freely sit! - Sit as a man should sit! - Sit as an American!
I will sit proudly, patriotically, stoical, determined, wondrous:
And shit happily, joyously, happily!
Yes!
It will start with a fart and turn into a turd: joyously, happily, joyously!
A thing of great beauty!
A thing of great life and great beauty!
A hymn to creation!
But mostly a hymn to shit!

Hallelujah!

William Carlos Williams:
This is just to say
I have

Gone to hang a crap
In the dunny.

Forgive me. I was
Farting all morning.

Edward Lear:
There was an old man with a pen
Who drew two larks, an owl and a hen:
His son said to him: 'sit,
While I go hang a shit,
You funny old man with a pen.'

Wordsworth:
Oft when, in later years, I pensive scan
With inward eye the creatures of my mind -
(The worker ox, the stallion proud and free,
The throstle singing in the linden tree -)
Then does an innocent come up and declare
"I'm going to the dunny, dad, to crap!"