Fourth Annual Bad Poetry Party, Saturday, 25 February, 7pm

[dr_pretentious]

It's time again for the annual Bad Poetry Party (and a belated celebration of my 36th birthday). We must begin, of course, with the lines that inspired it all:

We have seen thee, queen of cheese,
Lying quietly at your ease,
Gently fanned by evening breeze,
Thy fair form no flies dare seize.
...
We'rt thou suspended from balloon,
You'd cast a shade even at noon,
Folks would think it was the moon
About to fall and crush them soon.

--James McIntyre (1827-1906)
"Ode on the Mammoth Cheese, Weighing over 7,000 Pounds"


And yet, last February we were so jaded by three years of sublimely awful verse, we kept saying, "Oh, that's poem's bad, but it's not quite bad enough." Or, "I could have written one worse than that." And, "I don't know, I think Theophile Marzials is beginning to grow on me."

When Theophile Marzials is beginning to grow on you, you are in serious trouble. Prescription-strength fungicide may be your only hope.

Was it possible, we wondered, that we had plumbed the depths? That the worst was over? Or was it simply that we had become people who could never again be reduced to snorting by lines like this couplet by Amanda McKittrick Ros:

Holy Moses, take a look!
Flesh decayed in every nook!

My dears, I am here to tell you that I have found new veins of bad poetry that will keep us celebrating for many years to come.

And I didn't even have to write it all myself.

Please, once more, bring whatever bad poetry amuses you, by whatever definition pleases you. We'll have plenty of material here waiting for you, too. Come prepared to laugh until reduced to snorting.

Potluck addicts are encouraged to bring a dish.

Once again, we will crown whoever offers the most over-the-top declamatory performance as the Queen of Cheese. There is no honor or award quite like the construction paper Cheese Crown. You know you want it!

Comments

[dr-pretentious.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's some poem. No, if I'd seen that one before, I'd definitely remember it.

The only record I've been keeping is of who wins the Cheese Crown (determined by acclamation), and for what poem.

The first year, mischievouspie took the Cheese Crown (swiss) for her performance of "Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight." The second year, vgnwtch was crowned (jalapeno cheddar) for her absolutely deadpan BBC newscaster voice rendition of works from the Goth Poetry Generator, including an ode to "the leaping warthog of love." I don't think any of the rest of us could have made it through that one straightfaced. Last year, DS claimed the crown (dilled havarti) for his own original works, which dazzled us with the scope and variety of their willful awfulness. His ballad of clone-on-clone violence was especially impressive.

This year, I'm envisioning a Cheese Crown with lovely bleu veins.