On a Road In Iowa by Dave Morice - design by IF/THEN

I'm from St. Louis, but I moved to Iowa City to be in the Writers Workshop, and I've lived here ever since. My son Danny lives with me. He's 17. I've been writing ever since I was 5 years old. In grade school I started a novel titled Frankenstein Vs the New York Yankees. In high school I wrote a children's epic poem titled "The Idiot and the Oddity." Poetry books include Poems, Tilt, Snapshots from Europe, Quicksand Through the Hourglass. I've had three collections of poetry comics published (famous poems that I drew into cartoon form). Since 1986, I've written a wordplay column for the quarterly magazine Word Ways. I've written numerous poetry marathons as Dr. Alphabet. My current project is to rewrite Dante's Inferno in limerick form by converting John Ciardi's tercets into 5-line limericks. So far I've written 1000 of the 1500 that make up the Inferno. I've illustrated several books for other authors, including four with Richard Lederer and one with Tom Disch. I taught children's literature at the U of Iowa for 7 years. I taught a poetry class for people over 60 for 10 years. I've also taught Writer in the Schools Programs at over 40 schools in Iowa and elsewhere.

On A Road In Iowa by Dave Morice

(based on a real incident)

The farmer carries his shotgun
to the middle of the field
and aims at the sun.
Blam! His blast wakes the neighbors,
and day is ready to begin.
It really works: The sun has risen!
After a full day, it
starts to set. The farmer’s son
is sitting on the couch
next to what appears to be
a beautiful woman, the kind
that the farmer is attracted to.
The farmer looks more closely
and sees that it’s really just
a bushel of corn
dressed to resemble a woman.
He goes over to his desk,
takes his revolver out of a drawer,
and shoots the overhead light on.
Blowing the smoke from his gun,
he says, “Now I can see better.”
His son, holding some shocks
of corn in his arms,
looks up and cries,
“She’s gone, pa, she’s gone!”