The Clown and the New York Times Reporter

I bought a Remington portable typewriter with my first paycheck from Ringling Brothers back in 1971. I immediately began typing little notes to leave on the roomette doors of my fellow clowns. On Tim Holst's door I taped up a page reading "God will be late today -- you'll have to start without Him." On Chico's door I put "Keep Cool with Coolidge." On Roofus T. Goofus' door I put up "Roses are red/Violets are blue/You need a bath/You old stinkeroo!" And on Steve Smith's door I left this literary gem: "Dear Valued Customer:  It has come to our attention that your current subscription to Nose Pickers and Fart Smellers Magazine is about to expire. Please be advised that our local representative, Mr. Timothy Robert Torkildson, will be by to renew your subscription this week. Please have five dollars in small unmarked bills ready for him. Or else. Sincerely yours, The Management."

I like to think that my literary style has matured and mellowed somewhat since then. But maybe not. Still, I have kept on steadily writing all these years. I've written about my time in Thailand as an LDS missionary; my stint in small market radio; my seasons as a circus clown -- and I have also produced an ungodly amount of bad verse. Mostly in response to newspaper articles that hacked me off or amused me. My efforts in the poetry department have been staunchly ignored by newspaper editors the length and breadth of this great land -- until, just a while ago, a reporter from the New York Times called me up for an interview about my poetry!

Dumbfounded, I went ahead and answered Rachel Abrams' questions. The next day the paper printed her article on my work -- and I became internationally renowned and began a successful career as America's greatest light versifier since Ogden Nash.

Sigh . . .

Actually, nothing much happened -- so I took early Social Security and found a Senior Citizen rent-subsidized apartment (I'd been living in a friend's unheated basement.) I still write reams of indifferent poetry each day, emailing it to reporters and editors who for the most part ignore it with amazing willpower.

I've taken the liberty of copying that article here, in case you happened to be in Lower Slobovia at the time and missed it. I think it's a good puff piece -- all except the crack she makes about my "claiming to have worked as a clown for Ringling Brothers." I wish someone would tweet her to set her straight on that snide reportorial comment! (@RachelAbramsNY)

I got a funny little piece of reader mail back in October. It was a colorful drawing of a man accompanied by a poem:

I eat magnets all the time:
the reason ain’t redactive.
If I eat enough of ’em
I’m sure to be attractive.

I had just written an article about children ingesting high-powered magnets and thought the card was amusing, if a bit odd.

But I didn’t give it too much thought, until I received two more poems, this time by email.

The first came after an article I did on illegal products that come through United States ports:

Santa, with his pack of toys, came down the chimney quick,
Loaded with such nifty games and dolls and licorice stick!
Just as he began to spread the gifts beneath the tree,
Consumer product safety agents grabbed him suddenly!

They frisked him as they took his pack to look for contraband;
For Rolex knockoffs or perhaps a smuggled thyroid gland.
The DEA then confiscated ev’ry candy cane,
In the hopes that each one was made up of pure cocaine.

When they were done poor Santa’s bag was empty and in shreds,
While agents captured sugar plums around the children’s heads.
The reindeer were impounded to be tested for the mange;
For bus fare to the North Pole Santa panhandled spare change!

Let this be a lesson to the kiddies and their folks
That imports are a danger, or at least a shabby hoax.
If you want to celebrate the patriotic way Make sure your presents all are stamped: “Made in the U.S.A.”

And last week he sent another poem in response to an article on minimum wage increases:

Guess I never could maintain a franchise with success,
Since underpaying workers would give me a lot of stress.
It’s not that I’m an angel, heaven-sent to make folks rich;
It’s just that I’m a lazy good-for-nothing son of a bitch.

Underpaying workers on a constant basis means
A slew of lawyers and accountants picking my blue jeans.
For poor folks are so hard to manage if you cannot prove
That you are also slogging in that awful selfsame groove.

I’d have to go to meetings and make charities a must;
I’d have to slave like anything to earn my paupers’ trust.
I’d rather not create a bunch of jobs that keep men poor,
And give the world excuses to build another dollar store.

Maybe I should have been creeped out, but I wasn’t. The author, Tim Torkildson, is not the first reader to send reporters poetry. I was definitely curious, though. Was he writing to other people?

A quick Google search produced Mr. Torkildson’s blog, which has dozens, if not hundreds, of entries. He had just written about ferrets, right after Sarah Lyall’s story about the ban on them in New York City. Ms. Lyall said that Mr. Torkildson had sent her the poem.

It turns out that he has been writing poems to reporters for more than a decade. His poetry has appeared on The Times’s website at least once.

Mr. Torkildson, who lives in Utah, has had more time to write recently after being let go from a part-time teaching job this summer. He also claims to have been a clown for Ringling Brothers Circus. 

“I read a couple of newspapers every day, and when I find a story that I like that tickles me or sometimes that outrages me, I’ll set it down as a verse,” he said over the phone last week.

The earliest poem he can remember sending, he said, was in response to the siege in Waco, Tex., in 1993. He used to send most of his poems by mail, until that became too expensive.

Now, he usually sends them by email, although he doesn’t typically hear back from reporters. He also said he had submitted many of his poems to newspapers for publication.

“The reaction I get whenever I submit a poem to an editorial page, it’s, ‘We don’t print poetry,’ ” he said. “It’s gone out of style, apparently.”