On First Looking into The Shit Creek Review

Much have I savored from the Muse's bowel
Those droppings with their various perfumes
That nourish paean, dithyramb, and howl
As cowpats breed mind-altering mushrooms.
I oft the accolade "good shit" have heard,
Applied sometime to verse, sometime to weed,
Yet never got as high as sacred turd
Permits till I Shit Creek Review did read.

Then felt I as Sir William must have felt
When first into his ken Uranus swam
And his mind's nostrils flared and glory smelt:
I reeled beneath the heavenly Shazam!
    That makes great marvels of the merest stools
    And brims each chamber pot with priceless jewels.


- Chris O'Carroll



Tributes, including poetic ones, pour in to the busy work desk of The Shit Creek Review. This is just one of at least two examples: in this case from the keypad of Chris O'Carroll.

But it just gets better. The other tribute flowing across our work desk here at busy Shit Creek Central was from a Nigerian Banker who, after making several inquiries to Several Embassies to locate any of his client's extended relatives, has generously offered The Shit Creek Review full access to $US22,000,000 by way of a strictly confidential transaction. The editors pledge to put this generous donation to good use (after an initial rigorous testing and evaluation period) in the service of Poetry and the Arts.

Art as purging?

shit (v.)

O.E. scitan, from P.Gmc. *skit-, from PIE *skheid- "split, divide, separate." Related to shed (v.) on the notion of "separation" from the body (cf. L. excrementum, from excernere "to separate"). It is thus a cousin to science and conscience. The noun is O.E. scitte "purging;" sense of "excrement" dates from 1585, from the verb. Despite what you read in an e-mail, "shit" is not an acronym. The notion that it is a recent word may be because the word was taboo from c.1600 and rarely appeared in print (neither Shakespeare not the KJV has it), and even in "vulgar" publications of the late 18c. it is disguised by dashes. It drew the wrath of censors as late as 1922 ("Ulysses" and "The Enormous Room"), scandalized magazine subscribers in 1957 (a Hemingway story in "Atlantic Monthly") and was omitted from some dictionaries as recently as 1970 ("Webster's New World"). Extensive slang usage; verb meaning "to lie, to tease" is from 1934; that of "to disrespect" is from 1903. Noun use for "obnoxious person" is since at least 1508; meaning "misfortune, trouble" is attested from 1937. Shat is a humorous past tense form, not etymological, first recorded 18c. Shite, now a jocular or slightly euphemistic variant, formerly a dialectal variant, reflects the vowel in the O.E. verb (cf. Ger. scheissen). Shit-faced "drunk" is 1960s student slang; shit list is from 1942. To not give a shit "not care" is from 1922; up shit creek "in trouble" is from 1937. Scared shitless first recorded 1936.

"The expression [the shit hits the fan] is related to, and may well derive from, an old joke. A man in a crowded bar needed to defecate but couldn't find a bathroom, so he went upstairs and used a hole in the floor. Returning, he found everyone had gone except the bartender, who was cowering behind the bar. When the man asked what had happened, the bartender replied, 'Where were you when the shit hit the fan?' " [Hugh Rawson, "Wicked Words," 1989]

Online Etymology Dictionary

Scheissenbedauern

Scheissenbedauern: (German, literally "shit regret") the disappointment one feels when something turns out not nearly as badly as one had expected.

- from The Meaning of Tingo

The Meaning of Tingo Blog

SUBMIT!

Submit to The Shit Creek Review. You know you want to. Resistance is futile. All your base are belong us.

The theme for # 2 will be 'Where I Live' : poems and prose about the place you are in the world, whoever you are. We hope that you can supply JPEG pictures that would go with your work, too. Submission deadline is December 20th 2006 for the January 2007 edition.

See the Submission Guidelines here.

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Submissions

The email address for submissions is

editor@shitcreekreview.com

Bribes can be arranged using Paypal.