Captain Billy's Whiz Bang, October 1921 · page 5 of 68
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang #25 — page 5: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This column mocks the free-verse poetry movement gaining popularity in the 1920s. The editor ridicules an amateur "Ode to a Jackass" for its clumsy, pointless verses, then contrasts it with Ellen Janson's published work in *The Measure* (a real modernist journal). The satire works through ironic praise: Janson's deliberately obscure poem about "Shadowy" and sensual imagery ("breasts are lilies") is presented as "mysterious" and "neatly handled," but the author admits nobody—including himself—understands what she actually means. He sardonically suggests she might simply be flirting with some fellow (Fred Beauvais or Jim Stillman) out her window. The joke targets modernist poetry's pretension and opacity: even published, respected free verse is portrayed as incomprehensible nonsense masquerading as art. It reflects widespread 1920s cultural anxiety about avant-garde movements replacing traditional literary standards.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
Captain Billy's Whiz Bang 3 Drippings From the Fawcett SOME up-country contributor sends us in a lengthy “poem” under the alluring caption, “Ode to a Jackass.” This verse libertinage starts off something in the following fashion: Oh, well do I remember yet, How very proud I used to get When, like a little king, I’d set— Upon my donkey. There are several more verses which serve as proof that out in the rhubarbs the molasses candy is a mocker and soda pop a raging. The only redeeming feature in free verse is its mystery. Take this thing by Ellen Janson in “The Measure” entitled “Shadowy—Under My Window,” for example: Shadowy—under my window— Your low reed sobs Its desert love-song to the remembering stars. Shadowy— All the night my breasts are lilies, My lips are passion flowers. Now, there you are—a nice idea, neatly handled and mysterious. Your guess as to what Poetess Janson is driving at is as good as mine—and both probably are wrong. Perhaps she was talking to Fred Beauvais under her window, or Jim Stillman. Or it may have been the