Monday Poetry Post: Cow Tools

What does poetry mean? What does ANYTHING mean?!

Hi, and thanks for reading! Today is Monday, so we’re going to talk about poetry.

If you want to go directly to the poetry exercise, and skip all this “recipe blog” backstory, scroll to the next subhead.

Hello everyone. Today, I have a weird idea. What if we wrote a poem that was, essentially, this Far Side cartoon?

If you weren’t familiar with Cow Tools before, you are now. If you’re asking “Wait, what is this? And what does it mean?” you are aligned with generations of Gary Larson / The Far Side readers. When I first saw Cow Tools, years ago, I remember thinking “Huh. Okay!” and moving on with my life. But Cow Tools is back, baby. Gen Z is all about it. It is the summer of Cow Tools.

There is a Wikipedia page for Cow Tools, in which one citation quotes Gary Larson’s response to the fervor generated by the comic’s publication. In October of 1982, he released a press statement which included this perfect sentence:

"I regret that my fondness for cows, combined with an overactive imagination, may have carried me beyond what is comprehensible to the average Far Side reader."

I have been thinking about Cow Tools for several weeks now, because of a conversation with my little brother that brought it back to the forefront of my mind. Every once in a while, I do a search for “Cow Tools” on social media, just to make sure I haven’t missed anything. And I haven’t. At a glance, you see Cow Tools and you think, “I must decode this image. There is a joke here with meaning. There is a punchline. I have to solve it.” But the joke is obvious. The joke is not a lesson or a secret. The joke is: cow, tools. Cow Tools! And its implied inscrutability, despite or perhaps because of its actual simplicity, is the reason it sticks in your mind.

So, obviously I want to use this for poems. I want my fondness for something, and my healthily-active imagination, to carry me beyond what is comprehensible. We are going to try and do that together.

Exercise: Cow Tools

• For this exercise, you will need something (physical or digital) to write with. You will also need to look at the Far Side comic titled “Cow Tools.” Scroll up; it’s there.

• Look at the image for a while. There are things that will look familiar to you, and there are things that probably look somewhat foreign. Describe everything in the image as best you can without naming it. That means don't say the word "cow." Instead, describe its horns, its shape, the approximate scale to everything else on the page. Describe the tools using the same method. You do not need to name them, you just need to observe them.

• Once you have described the image, set a timer for two minutes. Write, stream-of-consciousness style, about what this image makes you feel. Personally, when I first saw it, I felt scared. I thought the cow's eyes looked angry, sinister even, and the tools were just...waiting. Like a dentist's tray of tools, or torture devices from the movie Hostel. But maybe you see a scientist proudly showing off his work, or an anthromorphized cow bringing the first accomplisments of his civilization to your attention as a means of creating a bond. Whatever this weird comic makes you feel, write about it for two minutes.

• Next, think about another experience that has made you feel similarly to the way Cow Tools makes you feel. Was it an art film? A weird day at the park when you were overtired and underhydrated? Did you accidentally get stuck at Denver Airport for 28 hours? Have you been to someone’s house and looked in their fridge and thought “What the hell? What the hell is any of this?” Write a few brief words about that experience, just enough to hold it in your mind.

• Now, set a timer for five minutes, and – this is probably the hardest part – describe that memory the way you described Cow Tools. What I mean is: write as much as you can remember, without giving things an immediately recognizable name.
  So if, for example, you got stuck at the Denver Airport for 28 hours, you could write about the endless circuit of broad, echoing hallways, the constant reverberation of engines grumbling through the walls as you cycled through hunger and boredom for a little more than a day. Or if you’ve been to someone’s house and their fridge was full of weird stuff, describe the weird stuff. Describe the apple which was not quite right, without naming it as an apple. What weird sports drinks did they have? How stained were their Tupperwares? What did their milk smell like?

• Imagine you have won a contest, and you get to have a poem syndicated in 1,900 newspapers tomorrow. However, the poem you write must be based off the experience you just described above. It can be any format, but ideally, it would fit into a 3.25” x 4” panel. Try to write it in under ten minutes. It does not need to make immediate sense to anyone but you.

This is, obviously, a weird exercise. I hope you like it! I hope it opens a new door in your brain. I am going to do this exercise myself later tonight, and write about the time I worked a weekend-long freelance job as the spa coordinator for a multimillion dollar wedding in Scottsdale. They sent me home in a limo to change for having “the wrong shoes” (Oxfords instead of pumps).