Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, Men Have Feelings, So What’s New?

So why not a collection of men’s poetry?

Why not, indeed. And so two poet-professors (one at San Diego State, one at United States International University) have wrought “Men of Our Times: An Anthology of Male Poetry in Contemporary America.”

You’re thinking it’s just fuchsia-colored verse seeping from the (sensitive) loins of the men’s movement, right?

There is a bit of that. But there is also a sizable serving of randy, funny, angry, poke-in-the-eye stuff: about men and their lovers, men and their children, men and their parents, men at work, men at war.

Take “Blind Girl at the Singles Bar.”

I don’t know what the blind girl sees

in me. She keeps staring at me as if

she can see as well as anyone else

in the place. Only her cane, propped

against the bar, gives her away.

Or “Son and Heir.”

You came uninvited, a stark

And slimy, inconvenient thing

we couldn’t throw out,

two romantics as we are.

Or “Vietnam Incidents” ( “Somehow Jimmy was always alone since that day/the VC surrounded his recon team/and he was the one the chopper brought back alive” ) .

Or “Vasectomy: A Poem in Two Parts” ( “The apron tent for modesty,/the glorious I.V./that felt like 3 martinis”) or “Rochester” ( “Because women think we’re dumb/They think we can’t feel anything” ).

Or “Breasts” ( “I love breasts, hard/Full breasts, guarded/By a button” ) or “My Penis” (call me, and I’ll read you a few lines).

Or any of the 257 poems from 170 poets nationwide.

There have been numerous anthologies lately of women’s poetry. Fred Moramarco, 53, (SDSU) and Al Zolynas, 47, (USIU) figured it was time for equal time.

They’re doing readings (including Sunday 4 p.m. at Esmeralda’s Books in Del Mar). They prefer poesy that is direct, not pounded with intellectual arcania.

They figure men will recognize the emotions and women will learn what’s on men’s minds. As Moramarco puts it:

“There’s a lot of news from the front here.”

Send in the Clowns

Political whirl.

* Peter Navarro may have found a new press aide for the runoff campaign: San Diego publicist Diane Oaks.

Oaks is not a political specialist, but she should feel right at home in a San Diego mayoral campaign.

She’s done publicity in recent years for the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

* John Seymour, the appointed incumbent running for reelection to the U.S. Senate, is trying (incongruously) to portray himself as a political outsider.

But maybe he’s not spoofing after all.

When a San Diegan wrote recently to Seymour with a problem with the state labor board, Seymour wrote back and suggested she contact her state senator, identified by Seymour as fellow Republican Larry Stirling.

“I am confident State Senator Stirling will do all he can to help,” wrote Seymour.

That’s doubtful. Stirling left three years ago.

* Chances seem slim for UC San Diego to host a presidential debate.

UCSD was Gov. Pete Wilson’s (second) choice to host one of the debates. (The Commission on Presidential Debates wants a California site very much.)

But the proposed September date--just as the fall quarter is starting--and the cost are big problems.

The commission wants the campus to pay for media accommodations, extra security, TV setup, etc. One source puts that at nearly $500,000, which would have to be raised from private sources.

Wilson’s first choice was UC Irvine, which backed out for the same reasons that now seem close to scuttling UCSD as a site.

How About a Heart?

Music and meaning.

David Baron, a staffer for Assemblyman Mike Gotch (D-San Diego), thinks C-SPAN may be trying to tell us something about our federal government.

While showing the House of Representatives voting this week on something called the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Withdrawal Act, C-SPAN provided a musical interlude.

A symphony version of a “Wizard of Oz” tune, “If I Only Had a Brain.”