Dostal, Cyril A.

United States, (1930-2002)

Ceramics Class

  1. In ceramics class,
  2. my daughter made an elephant.
  3.  
  4. Another girl said,
  5. “Oh, that’s a beautiful elephant!
  6. I want to make one just like it
  7. for my friend who loves elephants.”
  8.  
  9. So my daughter showed her how to
  10. form the body around a toilet paper tube,
  11. make the head and legs and trunk,
  12. and roll out the ears and stick them on.
  13.  
  14. After awhile the girl said,
  15. “I just can’t get it right.
  16. Mine keeps coming out like a pig.”
  17.  
  18. My daughter said,
  19. “The why don’t you make a pig?”
  20.  
  21. And the girl said,
  22. “But my friends likes only elephants.”
  23.  
  24. So my daughter said,
  25. “Make it anyway. Maybe your friend
  26. can learn to like pigs.”

 Cyril A. Dostal. From: ArtCrimes #07: Metapoems, Antipoems & Notpoems. Editor Christopher Franke. Cleveland: Steven B. Smith (1989).

About the Poet:

Cyril (“Cy”) A. Dostal, United States, (1930-2002), was a poet, college instructor, technical and advertising writer, senior editor for reference books, public relations director and freelance writer. Dostal was the founding president of the Poets’ League of Greater Cleveland and moderated the league’s monthly poetry workshop from 1973 until his death in 2002.

Dostal’s first collection of poems, Emergency Exit was published by Cleveland State University in 1975. The Cuyahoga Valley Nature Writers Workshop was formed by Dostal and Jill Sell in 1994, and for several years Dostal was publisher and editor of Tributaries, a national literary magazine devoted to nature writing. [DES-09/19]

Additional information: