White Blackbirds is devoted to recognizing and celebrating abnormal excellence; works we’ve spotted and think deserve attention; poems that we think reward reading.
By Nigel Beale
Down there, decorating the space below: Sherwin Tjia’s work. Pseudohaikus, he calls them. Here’s a shot at a definition:
Tending to disregard the basic 5-7-5 haiku syllable form, with scant reference to the seasons, they are easily digestible jottings, deceptive in their remarkable ability to tell more than at first they seem to; in this, they share the genius of the best haikus. Despite utmost economy these short words render rarified meaning, telling much without “telling all.” As Matsuo Bash?, one of the great Haiku practitioners, has it: “The haiku that reveals seventy to eighty percent of its subject is good. Those that reveal fifty to sixty percent, we never tire of.”
But Tija’s words do more than reveal. In addition to exhibiting a vibrant, curious sexual mind, these potent three-liners deftly employ puns, parody and satire, like a wedge that, once the sharp edge takes hold, cuts into your consciousness leaving a large mark. They feel like distillations, sentences boiled down to their best parts, leaving nothing but shiny depth-charges, playthings for the mind.
These toys are fine examples of metonymy, figures of speech where words or phrases are substituted for other closely associated ones (“Fleet Street” for “the British press”); they’re rhetorical devices used to describe things indirectly by referring to the stuff around them. Metonymy helps define a person or thing through a set of mutually reinforcing associations rather than, as with metaphors, through comparison. Advertising uses the device all the time, butting scantily clad women up against guys who’ve just splashed the right kind of sweet-smelling tonic over their faces.
But where’s the rub?
To describe the Tjia technique is one thing; to understand why it’s so pants-pissingly funny, quite another. Sure, the unexpected pattern-busting juxta-positioning of a typically serene, serious, contemplative poetic form with less than decorous talk of drinks being stirred by penises and grandmothers having cocks might explain some of it, but surely there’s more. I sought an expert opinion.
It has to do with anxiety, according to best-selling author and former prostitute Tracy Quan. These pseudohaikus are worrisome, she tells us. “’Zipper over the Nipple’ and ‘finish dressing in the elevator’” make me anxious,” said Quan. “’You’ll have to do better next time’ is an anxiety-provoking statement.”
Quan’s take suggests that we laugh about sex because we’re insecure about it. Some of us might be embarrassed about not being any good at sex. We don’t want to admit we’re insecure about it, or self-conscious about our sexuality. At no time in our lives is this more prevalent than in adolescence, and these pseudohaikus capture pubescent anxieties beautifully. They build tension, and then release us from it with fortune-cookie, Hallmark-card sentimentality (e.g., “if I threw a prom, you would be my slow song”). We laugh to wriggle free from the anxiety.
We laugh, too, says Quan, because of the clever way in which Sherwin boldly juxtaposes familiar, “flakey” surface concepts (“she is throwing herself at me and I am going to catch her!”), with formal “secret structures” underneath “which look random, but feel coherent.” A.A. Milne and E.B. White did something similar, handling worrisome topics in a light-hearted way.
There’s relief after the irreverence, Quan says. "I think Sherwin’s very cleverly subverting the haiku form, just as Bridget Jones’s Diary parodies Jane Austen novels. They may sound flakey, but underneath there’s a very sharp, witty mind commenting on society."
Our advice: Do yourself a favour. Crack open a bottle of Pisse-Dru and spend a quiet evening, ideally with a love interest, laughing and playing with Sherwin.
Letters to a Young Pervert
by sherwin sullivan tjia
a pseudohaiku collection
make
each kiss
count
my nipples
were hard the
whole time
please
moan
more
the nice underwear
that someone might
someday see
shower-wet
hair soaked
into shirt
you’ll need
to do better next
time, penis
when she sat
down they
slid up
We
Fell In
Love
my
brain on
hugs
across
the room
grin
i foreswore Tibetan
Buddhism and became a
student of teenage girls
a poem that
makes a boy
like you fast
within
kissing
distance
finding faith
in your
four fingers
villain
marries
vixen
finish
dressing in the
elevator
i tried to meditate
but ended up
masturbating
kay eye
ess ess eye
en gee
grandma,
what a big
cock you have
zipper
over the
nipple
i call on my
Muse and fuck
her brains out
she is throwing
herself at me and i
am going to catch her!
kissing you is
like kissing my
(smoking hot) sister
this is the
groping
mistletoe
slowly
savouring
every millimeter
i’ve got
emotion
sickness
saturdays we’d
walk down St-Laurent
kissing at every light
my girlfriend is
actually just me
at home in drag
you’re
my porn
now
i’ll see your
soft things and raise
you a hard thing
it’s flying
too fast
to fuck
my wife
is the delight
of my lfie
doing it in my
room it’s just
going to waste
pearls
before
swoon
the hickey
that wouldn’t
heal
i have a
crush on the
class vampire
whispering
sweet
somethings
stay on
until you
get off
the books in
my bed are my
boyfriend
their own
weight in
wetness
employer
of the
mouth
sperm
to
burn
i want our
planets to
bump orbits
her heart
turned into
an X
wear a bowtie
and bring me
a marigold
sit down
and make
a lap
he stirred
her drink with
his penis
if i threw a prom,
you would be
my slow song
Sherwin Tjia is a poet, painter and illustrator who grew up in Toronto, and now lives in Montreal. He is the author of two collections of poetry, Gentle Fictions and The World is a Heartbreaker, which was a finalist for the Quebec Writers Federation’s A.M. Klein Poetry Award.
Tracy Quan grew up in Ottawa South, Aylmer, Gatineau, and Centretown and went to Glebe Collegiate for a year. Her latest novel, Diary of a Jetsetting Call Girl, is a 21st Century adventure with a medieval twist. Her first novel, Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl, is published in 15 languages.
