WHO WOULD WIN
Ernie Shavers vs. Ernie Hemingway — who would win???
Norman Mailer vs. Norman Bates — who would win???
Betty vs. Veronica — who would win???
Jacques Cousteau vs. Jacques Strap — who would win???
Yellow vs. Blue — who would win???
Blue vs. Gruyère — who would win???
The 60s vs. the 90s — who would win???
Those in their 60s vs. those in their 90s — who would win???
Andre Breton vs. Andre Champagne — who would win???
William Shatner vs. Gil Gerard — who would win???
World War I vs. World War II — who would win???
Ironsides vs. Columbo — who would win???
Columbo (the private detective) vs. Colombo (Sri Lanka) — who would win???
Julius Erving vs. Irving Goodman — who would win???
Dialectical Hegemony vs. Axiological Heterogeneity — who would win???
Herman Melville vs. Herman Munster — who would win???
Corbett vs. Courbet — who would win???
Merlin Olson vs. Merlin — who would win???
Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Leonard Nimoy — who would win???
Ginger vs. Marianne — who would win???
Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. Zimbabwe — who would win???
Alfredo Evangelista vs. Linda Evangelista — who would win???
Gurkhas vs. Gherkins — who would win???
Those who are concerned with who would win
vs.
Those who are not concerned with who would win — who would win???
–Loren Goodman
Loren Goodman is the author of Famous Americans, selected by W.S. Merwin for the 2002 Yale Series of Younger Poets, and Non-Existent Facts (otata’s bookshelf, 2018), as well as the chapbooks Suppository Writing (The Chuckwagon, 2008), New Products (Proper Tales Press, 2010) and, with Pirooz Kalayeh, Shitting on Elves & Other Poems (New Michigan Press, 2020). A Professor of creative writing and English literature at Yonsei University/Underwood International College in Seoul, South Korea, he serves as Creative Writing Director and enjoys teaching courses on dreams, manga, imaginative writing, kung fu, and ethnography.
The New York School Diaspora (Part Fifty-Six) : Loren Goodman
You may find Loren Goodman’s poem of urgent alternatives, “Who Would Win,” very funny. Does this mean it’s less valuable as art? Some critics would say so. They would be wrong. Humor, though consistently undervalued in American poetry, is a great tool for opening the mind to new associations, new grandeurs.
Take this poem’s laser focus on winning. That’s American, n’est-ce pas? The wonderfully consistent trio of question marks at the end of each set of alternatives emphasizes the poem’s lurid preoccupation and America’s cultural obsession. It also hammers us with an unresolved question: what does “winning” mean??? and confronts us with our too-easy tendency to ignore such questions.
“Who Would Win” shares some impulses with John Ashbery’s riotous “Memories of Imperialism,” which begins
Dewey took Manila
and soon after invented the decimal system
that keeps libraries from collapsing even unto this day.
The poem goes on to explore the emotional state of this hybrid “Dewey,” to hilarious effect.
Goodman’s poem doesn’t merge the identities of his name look-a-likes; he juxtaposes them, creating an unnerving cultural stereopticon.
The initial name the poem gives us is Ernie Shavers, an American boxer active between 1969 and 1995, a two-time world championship challenger known as “the hardest puncher of all time.” He is matched via first name with “Ernie” Hemingway, wordsmith known for hyper-masculinity and the veteran of several non-professional bouts, including one with Wallace Stevens that consisted of a single punch. The poem goes on to more incongruous pairings: another hyper-masculine writer, Norman Mailer, vs. a fictional character quite attached to his mother, Norman Bates. It refuses to dwell long in any one brand of juxtaposition. The change-up from the 1960’s vs. 1990’s to an age comparison is particularly diverting. Disorientation is the order of the day. “Andre Breton vs. Andre Champagne—who would win???” is not so disparate a comparison when we think of Charles Baudelaire’s advice to “be drunk”—certainly followed by Breton, at least poetically. And Herman Melville and Herman Munster are both awkward loners prone to largesse and melancholy. We begin making connections between high and low culture, bridging gaps imaginatively. The poem becomes participatory.
Another participatory poem that may occur to us is Michael Ondaatje’s “Elimination Dance,” in which its audience is gradually disqualified by list of experiences or traits; for example, “Any lover who has gone into a flower shop on Valentine’s Day and asked for clitoris when he meant clematis.” Reading it, we wait for ejection—a variable outcome. Goodman’s poem also provides a variable outcome, its ending placing us in one of two categories: “Those who are concerned with who would win / / vs. / / Those who are not concerned with who would win—who would win???” Were the poem not concerned with who would win, it would end on the first “win” after “Those who are not concerned,” giving them the victory. As it is, we remain suspended, pitted against each other while the prunish disapprove.
Loren Goodman’s brilliant, teasing, and preemptory “Who Would Win” plays on our political habit of reducing difference to conflict and anticipates a time when Groucho Marxism will carry the day, the two major universities will be Darwin and Huxley, and ontology will duke it out with otolaryngology. It’s as plain as a rose on some lace. –Angela Ball
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Author: Angela Ball
