Who is Paul Hanson Clark? According to his blog, he lives in Omaha, Nebraska. That’s all I know about him. I don’t even know if that is true. Otherwise he remains an online mystery. Most of the comments on his poems are additional poems by him. No one knows why he does this, creating his own world to comment on. It forms a loop of work which is constantly feeding off itself. Honestly, it is a pretty interesting world.
Paul Clark wrote his first piece “Fat” on February 22nd, 2011. After he wrote it, he kept on adding to it. “Skinny” and “Average (in two parts)” came next. The final addition mentioned how he never wants to be famous. I like the language in it; it feels stark, harsh, bitter and sarcastic. Staying anonymous may help him remain obscured behind countless words and phrases. Note this title is repeated twice.
“It Makes You Think “Which Wolf”” takes a different approach. Here we’re treated to a really bizarre mash-up of various themes. Wolves after the three pigs go into a bar. Already we have the wolves bored of violence. Instead they revel in agitation. The entire poem has some bizarre circular logic to it. If a joke and fairytale came together with Catch-22’s perverse logic it might look something like this poem.
Mortality is faced in “That’s Annoying, But Whatever”. He bothers people with checking his phone. The comments (which are larger than the poem itself) explain visiting an old childhood friend. My favorite comment of his comes at the end, as he thinks about how he almost got electrocuted. Somehow he knew his body was conditioned to live its life. Towards the end of the comment poem we see a certain ‘flashing before my eyes’ about the ocean.
In “Gatorade” he is pretty funny. He makes $800,000 a year insulting others. Perhaps he is Tosh.0. Of course in such a mocking poem he needs to mention Sarah Palin, frog legs, disappointment, and passing out in front of a church. The words used are strong, difficult but funny. His comments yet again compliment his original piece.
Mountain Dew garners his attention in “Oh a Goodie!” He mentions the great beverage in a tweet to Mountain Dew’s official account. In that tweet he mentions why he’d be a good handler of the Mountain Dew twitter account. For Paul Clark is a humanitarian who believes Mountain Dew can change the world, he knows what joy it brings to extreme sports. Mountain Dew never tweeted back at him, showing Mountain Dew doesn’t care about twitter people.
This was a great discovery for me. I enjoy randomly stumbling upon something on the internet and just exploring every nook and cranny. Since Paul comments on his own posts it creates a sort of commentary on commentary. Most of the work serves as an endless hall of mirrors with the emotions getting reflected over and over again constantly shifting into something new. My recommendation would be to explore it for a little bit, follow him on twitter, and explore the alien landscape. Following him on twitter provides a more condensed version of his ideas or perhaps the roots of his main thoughts.
I guarantee you it will be weird.