Page 8
By Jack Joseph Smith
From the roaring
sounds of buffalo
Riffle to the
M-16 And South
Asia,
Balanced with the apples,
women hold up half the
sky. - Mao se Tung, last part
TAKE THE SHIT
OUT OF IT!
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
This page collides buffalo, rifles, the M-16, South Asia, and Mao into a blunt anti-rhetorical statement ending with `TAKE THE SHIT / OUT OF IT!`
It is one of the collection's clearest polemical pages. The poem wants to strip slogans and war language back to something bodily and furious.
A telescoped history of American firepower - 'From the roaring / sounds of buffalo / Riffle to the / M-16 And South / Asia' - set beside a softer image, 'Balanced with the apples,' and a borrowed Mao line that 'women hold up half the / sky.' The page then snaps out of citation entirely with the blunt all-caps order 'TAKE THE SHIT / OUT OF IT!,' as if commanding the poem to strip itself down to essentials.