As a writing major I was forced to take writing classes. Sounds odd, I know. And to graduate on time, or in 4 years, you had to take a class every semester. Often times, these classes are full. Why? Because every loser and their Jack Kerouac reading friends wants to become a writer and of course a class is how you produce a work like On The Road. So, being pressed for a class to enroll for, I took the only open Creative Writing course, Poetry 500.

Being a short story writer, I figured I could fake it somehow, and woohoo did I ever. The class was centered around this idea of the theme for a collection of poetry. So you might do 10 poems about Trees or 8 poems on Heartbreak. Whatever. The professor was some accredited poet and quite good, though I can't remember her name. She actually helped out constructively on my work at least. My idea, however, would baffle the class of such serious poets. I did my theme on Film Noir.

I came up with this idea from three sources. The first was this original piece I wrote in high school for my Speech and Debate team. It was an 8 minute solo piece called Sam Club, The Rhyming Detective. I told the story of a detective but done in meter. Crazy I know. That piece landed me 5th in state mutha fucker.

Second, was John Zorn's Spillane CD, my mentor by the way. Of course he got it from the narratives in Film Noir movies. Lounge Lizard's John Lurie does the voice of Mike Hammer on the album. Using Johns Lurie's voice as my main character voice really helped get most of the poems off the ground mentally. Zorn nailed the character better than I had in Rhyming Detective. I took the new level of violence from Spillane and ported to my original story.

Third, was the sheer amount of actual Film Noir movies I was renting. At the time, movies were coming out that followed in the genre like Barton Fink, Naked Lunch and Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog. My friends and I poured over all the old 50s detective movies to see where writer's and directors were getting their ideas from.

OK, so back to this class and to finish the story. I finished the class and turned in a collection of Film Noir poems as told by the characters in your average 50s pulp detective novel or movie and they were actually good. So, I submitted 3 poems for the final awards ceremony the University holds at the end of the year. While I can't say they bought my way through college, I did get a $50 cash prize for the pieces submitted. That's amazing when you consider they are totally useless bullshit poems done to pass a class I was stuck with. So, here are the poems I submitted. The entire series of 10 was called Sulphur and Peppermint. The ones with the * are poems I submitted.

Table of Contents:

Private Eye a la Mode *
Enter Sam Club, denizen of the City.

Song of the Gumshoe
Enter Miss Amory, bold and beautiful.

5¢ Whiskey
Enter Max Roachclip, bum and friend of Sam.

The Angles Broke Free
Sam takes a fall.

Freudian Jazz *
Sam takes a fall for love.

Wrong Again!
Get a clue Sam. The case isn't done.

Charlie's Funeral
Sam's enemies are tearing up the neighborhood.

You've Got To Love Your Man *
The wine was never sweeter, the water more bitter.

Police Report: The Big Circle Theory
The authorities rap up loose ends.

Don't Walk in the Rain
Exit Sam Club, hero, lover and drinker.