Prelutsky's Mad @ Wikipedia!

A Haiku* for Jack

“Chicken Bosoms & The Bean of the Day”**

Wikipedia (5)

Posts lies about Prelutsky (7)

“Who’s manning the shop?” (5)

Jack Prelutsky is “mad at Wikipedia.” he told me so himself.

He’s mad because Wikipedia included false information about his life. The current article on him is accurate today but the damage has been done. He wants to know “who’s manning the shop?” He vented his frustration during his presentation to a group of educators from WORD @ Borders Books tonight.

False Wikipedia entries about Jack included these statements:

“Jack Prelutsky was married to Von Tre Venefue, a woman he had met in France.”

“They divorced in 1995 and Jack is currently single.”

“He befriended a gay poet named Espiritu Salamanca in 1997 and both now work together in writing poems and stories for children and adults alike.”

These falsehoods were added to Jack’s stub on June 8, 2005 and remained unedited until last week on January 28, 2006

These entries have since been deleted but Jack is mad because “none of these people even exist outside of this website.” The crowd of primarily primary teachers and librarians had little knowledge of what Wikipedia is and this first impression was not a good one.

Jack is the current featured poet on PoetryFoundation.Org with an impressive 30 year career as a “charming and witty verse” poet…darned impressive considering he “flunked college English twice.”

*My attempt at a Haiku in honor of Jack’s reading from his book of 17 Haikus “If not for the Cats” tonight. Technically mine is not a Haiku because it’s not about nature.

**”Chicken Bosums & The Bean of the Day” are funny restaurant menu sayings written by Jack in his little black book.