It's a PUNDEMIC!
A funny new book of ridiculous poems by Tasmanian-grown Canyon Seven (a.k.a Cameron Semmens) and neo-Taswegian Spike Mason.
It’s 2 books in 1!
Book 1: It’s a PUNDEMIC – vi-really bad poems ready to spread!
– by Canyon Seven.
Book 2: I Never Met a Pandemic Poem I Didn’t Like – a jazz cat responds to the bad poems of Canyon Seven with even badder poems.
– by Spike Mason.
Yes, a poet and a jazz man have collaborated to create a funny, crazy, upside-downable book of so called ‘bad’ poems about COVID-19 and such. What started off as a Whatsapp chat, where Canyon would write a poem, and Spike would produce a cutting parody, grew into a whole collection poems and parodies which is now proudly in print. The other unique thing about the book is that there’s is no back cover – you read Canyon’s poems through one way, then flip it over and read Spike’s parodies the other way, or you can spin the book as you go, reading poem and parody together.
ALSO, to add to this book’s unique upside-down-ability, it is garnished with ‘rotational ambigrams’ especially created by Seven for this project. If you don’t know what they are, they’re words and statements (even mini-stories) that can be read upside-down AND right-way-up!
Seven says, “Everything has been so intense and distressing and political – I just wanted to create something fun and silly. Sometimes the best medicine is laughter, and if not laughter, dad jokes and ambigrams must suffice.”
Mason says, “Poets think there is a difference between good and bad poems. I'm here to prove them wrong.”
Fraser Tustian (writer, comedian, performer, geek) says, "Just when you thought 2021 couldn't get any worse! A book of poems you will never forget, but dammit, you're gonna try."
Phil Jepson (electrician, science teacher, Excel wizard, pun goblin) says, “This book purports to be full of bad poetry. To that end the authors have set themselves an exceedingly low bar which, sadly, they have failed to sail under. At times I found myself laughing out loud; at others, lost in thoughtful contemplation of a pithy pun or poignant point well made; at others, inspired to pen my own response to the authors’ offerings. Even the upside-down layout ties in nicely with the ambigrams scattered throughout. Despite a sprinkling of truly horrendous poems, this is hardly the tome FULL of crap that I was led to expect. Deeply disappointing. 4 out of 5 stars.”
Natalie Jefferys (composer, singer, poet) says, “In this book Seven and Mason follow in the footsteps of poets Oscar Wilde, Sylvia Plath, and Virginia Woolf, disguising their slow dissent into madness and poverty as ‘poetry’. While the latter are recognised as inspirations for generations of literature to come, this book will most likely serve primarily as the inspiration for their children’s future therapy sessions…
Tug Dumbly (poet and satirist) says, “W. H. Auden said ‘good poets have a weakness for bad puns’. That said, terrible poets have an even greater and more fatal compulsion for verbal nerdplay of the most egregious kind, as evidenced by this truly punishing read. Yes, the pundits are all agreed (at least those not dead from contact with this tomb … sorry, tome), the authors of this punnet of pain, Mason & Seven, will only come to regret they can’t write this whole punoply off as a drunken piece of Plague-iarization.”
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