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dr_pretentiousWe're throwing our fifth annual Bad Poetry Party on the 20th. Of course, the official date for International Bad Poetry Day is my birthday, the 22nd, but we always aim for the nearest Saturday.
The whole International Bad Poetry Day phenomenon began with one terrible poem:
Ode on the Mammoth Cheese, Weighing over 7,000 Pounds
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)
All right, all right, I admit it: the whole International Bad Poetry Day phenomenon is still pretty small. It's only international because![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
vgnwtch (who was awarded the jalapeno cheddar Cheese Crown in 2002 for her stunning performance of poems from the online Goth Poetry Generator) moved back to Britain, and declared that if she couldn't be back in Jersey for the party this year, she'd throw her own celebration of bad poetry. But the moment our event became international, we got ambitious. After all, bad poetry is way funnier than talking like a pirate. I have a five year plan to overtake International Talk Like a Pirate Day. My five year plan is...um...to throw a really good party once a year.
We can claim credit for helping many people get in touch with their inner bad poets. Some have dug up their old high school diaries, while others have blazed new trails. With the author's permission, I offer you the prize of last year's crop of new bad poems composed especially for the occasion:
Ode to Sven, My Pet Glacier,
Being a Reminiscence upon the Time before the Great Melting Took My Veray True and Goode Companion, Who Was Named After My Nephew’s Newt
by Anthony Lioi
O Sven,
I open my refrigerator door
to find you languid as a whore
unlike your doughty ancestors of yore
who carved the Finnish fjor-
ds way back when.
O Sven,
Sometimes the door gets stuck
or blocked by degenerating muck
from last week’s huck-
ulberry pie, but you don’t give a fuck.
Beyond your ken,
O Sven,
beyond even my barbie-
cue, on which I cooked the shrimpy
that you froze to solid icy.
I should’ve gone to Blimpie.
But what then?
O Sven,
When people come on over
They remark upon your lover,
some lentil soup I won’t discover
till you relax your fev’rish grip o’er
what I have forgottén.
O Sven,
I wish poems could rhymey
just like this all of the timey,
but not ev’ryone is lucky
to have a frigid rubber ducky
more loyal than men.
So Sven,
once global warming fries
the grownup glaciers into muddy pies
I will remember you, good and wise,
my boon companion of unimpressive size,
who when my nephew’s newt dies
will be the only creature in our family named Sven.
Please 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!
The whole International Bad Poetry Day phenomenon began with one terrible poem:
Ode on the Mammoth Cheese, Weighing over 7,000 Pounds
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)
All right, all right, I admit it: the whole International Bad Poetry Day phenomenon is still pretty small. It's only international because
vgnwtch (who was awarded the jalapeno cheddar Cheese Crown in 2002 for her stunning performance of poems from the online Goth Poetry Generator) moved back to Britain, and declared that if she couldn't be back in Jersey for the party this year, she'd throw her own celebration of bad poetry. But the moment our event became international, we got ambitious. After all, bad poetry is way funnier than talking like a pirate. I have a five year plan to overtake International Talk Like a Pirate Day. My five year plan is...um...to throw a really good party once a year.We can claim credit for helping many people get in touch with their inner bad poets. Some have dug up their old high school diaries, while others have blazed new trails. With the author's permission, I offer you the prize of last year's crop of new bad poems composed especially for the occasion:
Ode to Sven, My Pet Glacier,
Being a Reminiscence upon the Time before the Great Melting Took My Veray True and Goode Companion, Who Was Named After My Nephew’s Newt
by Anthony Lioi
O Sven,
I open my refrigerator door
to find you languid as a whore
unlike your doughty ancestors of yore
who carved the Finnish fjor-
ds way back when.
O Sven,
Sometimes the door gets stuck
or blocked by degenerating muck
from last week’s huck-
ulberry pie, but you don’t give a fuck.
Beyond your ken,
O Sven,
beyond even my barbie-
cue, on which I cooked the shrimpy
that you froze to solid icy.
I should’ve gone to Blimpie.
But what then?
O Sven,
When people come on over
They remark upon your lover,
some lentil soup I won’t discover
till you relax your fev’rish grip o’er
what I have forgottén.
O Sven,
I wish poems could rhymey
just like this all of the timey,
but not ev’ryone is lucky
to have a frigid rubber ducky
more loyal than men.
So Sven,
once global warming fries
the grownup glaciers into muddy pies
I will remember you, good and wise,
my boon companion of unimpressive size,
who when my nephew’s newt dies
will be the only creature in our family named Sven.
Please 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!
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no subject
Date: 2007-01-06 04:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-06 05:15 pm (UTC)I wish I could come
Date: 2007-01-06 06:17 pm (UTC)A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day, 5
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain. 10
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
That is all.
Re: I wish I could come
Date: 2007-01-06 10:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-06 08:19 pm (UTC)Can't make it
Date: 2007-01-07 03:05 am (UTC)Alas, maybe next year!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-07 08:15 am (UTC)You didn't mention WHERE the event's being held and it so happens I'll be in NYC on the 20th. I'd love to go if possible. Please let me know. My claim to bad poetry fame is destroying popular songs by rewriting lyrics (Weird Al style). Despite that fault, I think it sounds like a hoot!!
no subject
Date: 2007-01-07 02:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-07 01:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-01-07 10:11 pm (UTC)Once it turns into a viral web-meme or gets onto NPR... you may always be known as handmaiden to the Cheese Queen.
hi..
Date: 2007-01-16 08:33 pm (UTC)Re: hi..
Date: 2007-01-17 01:15 am (UTC)