Fouhaha

Image by Alice Myers via the Best Scottish Poems website

At the risk of sounding like a wide-eyed American I will confess that I did not know what 'dogging' meant, in the UK sense, but I could tell I was missing something so I looked it up.  This poem is from the Scottish Poetry Library publication Best Scottish Poems which was guest edited this year by one of my favorite poets, Roddy Lumsden.  As in years past I liked so many of the poems but this one, being funny, naughty and about the French, practically begged me to share it here.

 

The Académie Francaise Considers a Word for Dogging by Andy Jackson

Chiennage, a literal response, is cast aside,
its laziness the thin end of the wedge, reminder
that the Anglophones are twenty miles across
the ruffled sleeve of water, typing into blogues 

and laughing in their pockets at le yé yé, snide,
and covetous and lacking in élan.  They ponder
whether poetry would work, consider coarse
equivalents - attroupement de rut, though stags

are cheapened by comparison with sleazy
rosbifs blundering priapically in leisurewear.
Dehorgie is a possibility, a cut-and-shut creation
with a pleasing wit.  Etranger-plonger - smirks 

from young duffers round the room - easy
on the ear but too contrived.  Onomatopoeia
puts its hand up after momentary hesitation,
volunteers ouambam.  Chairman says it doesn't work 

for him, and dingue-dongue, shique-shaque, fouhaha
make shagging in a layby sound okay. 
Someone mentions gender - masculin ou feminin? -
and that's enough to force adjournment for the day. 

 

More Best Scottish Poems, 2011 edition, over here.  It is a very enjoyable read and I especially like the author and editor comments beneath each poem.

Comments

[friendof rachel worth]

I was once in a shop in my hometown in the middle of the fens when 2 old dears were talking about their love of country puruits when one said "I do love a bit of dogging" they both were a bit perplexed when i ran spluttering form the shop

[Greer]

ha!! Oh, that is too funny.

I haven't heard it said in a long long time but when I was growing up, to 'dog' someone meant to tease them in a very harsh way or to say unkind things behind their back. So I was about as surprised as those two sweet ladies might have been to learn the current meaning.