The term “grease poetry” is one I first read in Wright Thompson’s Pappyland, where he uses it to describe the dialect of the late, great moonshine runner and stock car legend Junior Johnson.

Growing up in Southern Indiana, I have a special place in my heart for “grease poetry”.

You can hear it spoken in roadside breakfast joints, local dives, liquor holes and all those gas stations that double as beat-to-hell mechanic shops.

An example of grease poetry spoken on the big screens was Joe Dirt’s infamous firework quote where he fires of a list of 4th of July explosives that hums like a spoken word poem…

*Joe Dirt is typing now*

“

You're gonna stand there, ownin' a fireworks stand, and tell me you don't have no whistlin' bungholes, no spleen splitters, whisker biscuits, honkey lighters, hoosker doos, hoosker don'ts, cherry bombs, nipsy daisers, with or without the scooter stick, or one single whistlin' kitty chaser?

“

What the fuck is a whistlin’ kitty chaser anyhow?

I’m going to reach for a lesson here –– even though I wrote this entire fucking piece to amuse myself –– but when writing, don’t just write to folks in New York City and Los Angeles.

Write to America. Speak their language.

But, I digress.

By Cole Schafer.

P.S. David Ogilvy recommends getting on a bus when you decide to get overly cute with the words you’re using.