This post is the work of writer and editor Sean Casey.–TM
Racine, Wisconsin is home to one of our funniest poets: Dan Nielsen.
In the 90s, Nielsen edited the mags Blank Gun Silencer and Nerve Bundle Review and, under the imprint Blank Gun Silencer Press, published wonderful chapbooks by authors including Gerald Locklin, James Magorian, and Fred Voss. His editorial bent was toward the comic, tweaked, and slightly dark. In the International Directory of Little Magazines and Small Presses, he stated a preference for work that made you laugh in a nervous way. As evident in all he published, Nielsen likes poetry that does its work quick and fast with little ballyhoo. In his introduction to Locklin’s Toad Writes Short Shorts (1993) he puts it this way: “I like short short poems because I’m lazy, and because if you get it you get it, and if you don’t get it you get on to the next one.”
Nielsen the poet practices what he preaches. His poems are always short, delivering humor with utmost economy, and so are his books–all of them, as far as I know, chapbooks. They include Principal Poisons (1991), Insincere Flattery and Thinly Veiled Sarcasm (1994), My Mind Rolls On Like A Deodorant (1995), and a ???selected’ sampling the above mentioned, patina of verdigris (1997).
Here are a few Nielsen poems:
YOU KNOW THE TYPE
at a party
he confronts a girl
with, “you don’t
remember me
do you?”
and she’ll say, “no.”
then
he takes a nylon stocking
out of his pocket,
pulls it over his head
and whispers,
“now
do you
remember
me?”
–from My Mind Rolls On Like A Deodorant
I WOKE UP ONE MORNING
and i couldn’t remember my name
or anything that had ever
happened to me
i thought i t might be
amnesia
i went to see a doctor
he gave me a series of tests
he said the good news is
you do not have amnesia
the bad news is
you do not have a name and
nothing has ever happened to you
–from Insincere Flattery & Thinly Veiled Sarcasm
THROUGH THE WINDOW
the house painter
is watching my wife
take a bath
i reach to pull down the shade.
“it’s okay,” she says, “he’s
a professional, this means
nothing to him.”
–from My Mind Rolls On Like A Deodorant
In recent years Nielsen has taken his work to a logical next venue: stand up comedy. His routine directly incorporates poems without calling them such. Here’s a Youtube clip of Nielsen in his new habitat.