A poem about carpet squares
Today’s poem—or, more precisely, the poem I wrote on March 27, 2003—will test the old adage “write what you know,” as its subject matter is something with which we’re all perhaps too familiar: carpet squares.
I don’t believe the classrooms in my high school even had carpeting, so I’m not sure why this particular topic inspired me to write a poem in my high school creative writing class, but here we are: my poem about carpet squares, followed by some nonsensical paragraph that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything:
Actual advice for writing poetry, plus a poem that utilizes none of it
First off, you’re welcome for the ABSOLUTELY FREE NOTES I’m about to give you from my Very Professional Public High School Education. It’s your (or your parents’) tax dollars that paid for this, and I’m nothing if not completely willing to help you maximize your return on investment. Read and learn, then be completely befuddled by whatever may follow:
It’s like I just assumed my teacher wasn’t going to read this
This post is kinda sorta the direct sequel to a real cliffhanger of a post, but while I’m sure you’re chomping at the bit to get to today’s (re: ~12 years ago’s) poetry, I’d like to first hastily explain what is about to happen in the three poems below:
- The first “poem” is total garbage. It’s a reluctant apology for doing something I did not consider wrong; I don’t know exactly what it was, but I am clearly just being whiny.
- The second “poem” is a continuation of the first, mostly because we’d just learned about Emily Dickinson, and apparently my major takeaways were “she capitalized seemingly random words” and “she used dashes seemingly at random,” leading my parodic slant to what we’ve got here (other than failure to communicate).
- The third poem was probably something I wrote in 2 minutes to show to Brynn, my awesome/hilarious friend who sat by me in class and laughed at most of the things I said/did, which is a thing that made her (and frankly anyone else) worthy of my attention, as I was (am) a charismatic young teenager who was always fond of a little extra ego boost.
Hopefully that introduction will alleviate somewhat the horror art you are about to experience:
Poetry about enigmatic smiles and offending everyone
This one’s gonna be a doozy.
You see, back on March 26, 2003, I apparently offended someone. This officially puts me Ahead of My Time, as these days, literally everyone is constantly offended all the time always, forever. In fact, I’m ONE HUNDRED PERCENT SURE that the previous sentence just offended someone. And my use of caps lock very likely triggered at least half a dozen people, who will now go blog about it on Tumblr and talk about how I oppressed them by thinking independent thoughts. Ha ha, just kidding—both you and I know that fewer than half a dozen people will ever actually read this.
To be clear, I was actually not even being that hyperbolic in the previous paragraph: in the image you are about to see below, I had to actually crop out half of my “apology,” because even MY APOLOGY would be too offensive for people in a hyper-politically-correct 2015, where Internet Peoples’ skin is about as thick as a sheet of tissue paper wrapped tightly around a blazing pile of firewood.
That having been said, here is the latter half of my apology, followed by a poem about… well, you’ll see (that’s what we call a “tease” in THE BIZ):
That time I felt the need to explain the concept and use of satire to my Creative Writing teacher, because High Schoolers
Poem: The Konami Code
If you want to test someone to find out if (s)he is a “real” gamer, then ask about the Konami Code. It’s a cheat code used in several Konami games, but for whatever reason, it became so iconic that other video games also started to utilize it, and has become so prevalent in pop culture that ESPN, Facebook, and Google have featured it in Easter Eggs on their web sites. It’s kind of a big deal.
The Konami Code, by the way, is up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, usually followed by start or select and then start. I did that from memory. Be impressed… or don’t, since I just talked about how familiar every gamer should be with it.
Anyway, I wrote a poem about it. Please enjoy it.
I only had to use three continues before finishing this poem!! … which… doesn’t even make sense
Transcript:
Look at you!
Look at me
Look at you
Looking at nothing
BECAUSE IT DOESN’T EXIST?
What’s it to you,
Super nerd?
I don’t think so—
Not this time—
So let me look around,
Look inside,
Pretend I believe in your fictional lies!
I’m gonna flip,
Iron Will;
Shoot to thrill, play to kill!
Stolen line just like the rest,
Unoriginality’s always been the best,
So do it sideways, up,
Up, down, down,
Left, right, left, right,
B, A, B, A,
Start the fight
Cause I’m gonna win,
Your chance was gone when I turned you on,
And now you’re gone, worse off than Pong,
Made obsolete by myself the 1337,
And when you scream I flip the switch
And live to fight another day.
Game Over, bitch.
Analysis:
- This is awful.
- Yes, I realize it’s not really about Konami. Or the Konami Code. Or anything.
- “1337” is pronounced “leet” (like “elite,” but without the “e”), in case you aren’t nerdy enough to immediately realize that.
- “And live to fight another day” is what the major bad guys (Bebop, Rocksteady, The Shredder, Krang) yelled all the time in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon series. So yes, that’s stolen, too.
- This… wow, this is awful.
I hope you were mildly entertained by this. Just remember: you can write better poetry than me. Sometimes I write decent stuff, but with this, I have officially set the bar so low, you can’t possibly do much worse. I’m gonna go punch the Konami Code into a controller for a while now.
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This post is part of Cody’s “10-Year Idea Reunion” series, in which Cody revisits his creative writing class assignments exactly 10 years after writing them. Learn more about Cody’s Idea Reunion and follow him on WordPress to follow along!
A poem I can’t really explain
Fair warning: I have no idea what motivated this poem. It includes a lot of vocabulary words and is kind of emo, at least for me. So good luck getting through it:
Holy vocabulary, Batman
Transcript:
I cry, enraged;
Interneccine, intractable, intolerable
Living a lie because the truth hurts
The truth, just as myself:
Intangible, impractible, intolerable
Just as hard to reach as
An echo in a cave
But deep within they lie
Investigate, intrude after all
Invincible You, Invidious You,
Inviolate Me, Invisible Me;
Interjected by hope.
By love – But for Whom?
Insanity for me
As if I could even tell
It interrupts the thoughts I can’t understand
They intrude, they intrude,
But into nothing at all.
People want me,
People need me,
But they don’t see me
So do they use me?
Symbiotic
People use people
And in the end, enraged,
I cry.
A few things:
- The second line roughly translates to “murderous, obstinate, intolerable.” Later on, “impractible” isn’t a real word, “invidious” means “hateful,” and “inviolate” means “unharmed.”
- I think the tone of the poem is too dark for me to have been simply messing around with alliteration, as I’ve done in previous poems, unless I was simply too angry while writing this angry poem to heed the English language.
- “An echo in a cave” refers directly to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, although I don’t necessarily understand the context.
I must have had a bad day or something when I wrote this. Do you see any universal truths in this poem? Any statements about human nature? It’s hard for me to look at any of my old poetry objectively and try to read it out of context, which is both problematic for presenting my old works to the general public, and frustrating because maybe that’s now really the point.
This poem really sticks out to me because it isn’t sarcastic or irreverent, but it’s also really abstract compared to a lot of my other stuff. Like, generally, I see something and think to myself “okay, I get where that came from,” but this one is just like… totally out of left field. I hope you find some enjoyment out of it, because I can’t find much value in terms of poetry or reminiscence.
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This post is part of Cody’s “10-Year Idea Reunion” series, in which Cody revisits his creative writing class assignments exactly 10 years after writing them. Learn more about Cody’s Idea Reunion and follow him on WordPress to follow along!
A poem starring forced alliteration, excessive prepositions, and Super Smash Brothers: Melee
I don’t know what exactly our teacher could have possibly said to inspire me to write this poem. Seriously, here is what must have happened that day:
Teacher: Okay class, you all have to write a poem today, the subject of which must be something you are passionate about.
Me: Does that include video games?
Teacher: Why yes, Cody, it certainly does! And be sure to include at least one writing technique, such as alliteration, in the poem.
Me: How about I include alliteration, but instead of giving it any context whatsoever, I just write a bunch of words in a row that start with the same letter but lack any coherent or logical flow?
Teacher: That sounds splendid! Please also do that with a part of speech as well, such as prepositions or linking verbs.
Me: I will do so happily, and then gallivant into the sunset!
Teacher: You didn’t even use that word correctly, but who cares? Go write your terrible poem!
That basically is what must have happened, because Science®. Anyway, here’s the result of this conversation:
A poem featuring forced alliteration, excessive prepositions, and Super Smash Brothers: Melee
Transcript:
Characters all around
25 all around,
Colorful characters quite abound
Every few and every pair
Have some sort of reason to be fighting there
Cartoonish they seem, yet I don’t quite care
It keeps things clean—for the Kids.
Contacts cascading, namecalling renaming
The therapeutic Theremin of Thespian thinking
A thing-in-itself
Which no-one seems to be seeing
Smelling the sweat, the substance of strife
Illiterate critics, illegitimate gimmicks,
Sucking the life out of
Into out of around near far abound
Train of thought
Derailed to hell
Away from the housetop,
Away from the roof
Now dash away, dash away…
Dash away all.
Ten years after writing this poem, I can explain almost every thought that went through my head. I have no specific recollection of writing it, but here’s how each part of this happened:
- I started writing about Smash Brothers. “25 characters” are in Smash Brothers: Melee, and the violence in the game is irrefutably “cartoonish” to maintain a K-A rating (Kids to Adult), which is the video game equivalent of being rated PG.
- I must have heard the word “theremin” somewhere and couldn’t think of anything else to write in Line 9, so I just grabbed a Thesaurus (or used any “th” words I could recall) and stuck them together incoherently, very likely thinking “I can get away with anything, it’s poetry” at the time.
- Line 13, “Illiterate critics, illegitimate gimmicks” undoubtedly refers to video game critics who invent facts to further their own political agendas (i.e. Jack Thompson, who at the time was sadly receiving media coverage) as I start to “zoom out” from Smash Brothers itself and start to examine the overall perception of it, and gaming.
- After writing Line 14, “Sucking the life out of,” I couldn’t think of what to write, so I just wrote a chain of prepositions, which were HUGE in the Latin class I was also taking at the time. I directly admit this in Line 16 when I say “Train of thought,” and concede that I couldn’t think of a coherent follow-up in Line 17: “Derailed to hell.”
- Lines 18 through the end are self-explanatory.
Is it frightening that I can deconstruct my own ten-year-old poem as specifically as I did? Honestly, you tell me. I like to think that some things never change, and that I don’t think that’s a bad thing. My writing was also pretty transparent, at least at the time, and at least to me.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this completely ridiculous poem! Looking ahead, it appears that I won’t have a great deal of notes/poems/stories for the next 10 days, but please stay tuned and there will be plenty more for you to analyze, criticize, or ignore soon!
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This post is part of Cody’s “10-Year Idea Reunion” series, in which Cody revisits his creative writing class assignments exactly 10 years after writing them. Learn more about Cody’s Idea Reunion and follow him on WordPress to follow along!
A Poem: “Bad Poetry Gone Worse”
AN ASSIGNMENT! Looks like we had homework in my creative writing class. And this also looks like a semi-serious attempt at a semi-serious poem. I’m going to post the transcript first, and THEN an image of the poem, so that you can read it (if you’d like) without my teacher’s commentary first.
Just as before, I’m reluctant to post one of my actual serious attempts at poetry, because who wants to feel vulnerable ever? And yet I must, not only to grow as an artist, but because I wrote this ten years ago and really have no business feeling self-conscious about it in the first place. So here you go:
Bad Poetry Gone Worse
Warmth and safety –
Temporary, not contemporary –
Brought about by softly stroking,
Holding close who means the most,
To feel warmth and safety.
A delicate caress, and a moment trapped in time
Forever – an eternity – can never last that long
The feeling held, the moment constant,
Infinity within a single embrace
Yet no time, no numbers, no measurements
Can quantify my Happiness.
Supporting Me, supporting You
Like two, like one; like one, like two;
Together at last, together forever
Together forever… but only for a moment.
One last look one last sigh
One last hug at the end of the night
One last peck – unless we’re just Friends –
One last grin as if keeping things quiet
One last touch to ensure that She’s there
One last heartbeat—
The everlasting hug… Gone.
Don’t let the title fool you; it’s not actually that bad. Maybe.
A few things:
- We studied Emily Dickinson quite extensively in English class; this led to a substantial use of “random” capitalization in my poetry, often somewhat mockingly. In this case, however, it looks like my teacher (and I, ten years later) was pleased with how I used it.
- I can’t decide whether I agree with my inclusion the line “Temporary, not contemporary” that my teacher circled. It kind of doesn’t fit, but I feel like there’s a case for it. Thoughts?
- This poem doesn’t suck, so that’s kinda cool, right?
I wasn’t what you would call “good” at things like “turning in assignments on time,” so I’m sure the check with “-20%” at the top of the page means that I turned in my assignment late. Oh well, I still graduated!
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This post is part of Cody’s “10-Year Idea Reunion” series, in which Cody revisits his creative writing class assignments exactly 10 years after writing them. Learn more about Cody’s Idea Reunion and follow him on WordPress to follow along!
Poetry about hell… and Roy from Smash Brothers
I’m not sure how or why this happened, but apparently I penned a few poems about hell. The first poem is my “main” hell poem, followed by a poem that is about both hell and Roy from Super Smash Brothers: Melee, equally. Let’s see how dark my high school mind could get:
A poem about hell, followed by a poem about hell and Roy from Super Smash Brothers: Melee
Transcript:
The descent.
Through the cloud;
Off a cliff;
Into the needles
—Of a blackberry bush.
The voice of death
Whirring in your head
The descent into hell—
You know that you’re dead.
The same from all places
The distance of the journey is
For central the location be
Of Auburn’s room 296.
Wow… talk about anticlimax. I’m guessing that my creative writing class met in room 296. Anyway, that poem is followed by a rough draft of the next poem. Moving along, here is that second poem:
Gripping, masculine, muscular hands
In hell, no-one can hear you—
Play Smash Brothers—
I guess Roy really IS flaming!
A few things:
- Roy is a character from Super Smash Brothers: Melee (originally from the Fire Emblem video game series), and I never liked him. His sword often bursts into the flame in the game, so I liked to call him things like “flaming idiot” and “flaming loser.” At the time, “to flame” someone meant “to insult” someone; I often had “flame wars” with my friend Captain, who of course LOVED Roy.
- The imagery of tightly gripped hands could apply to Roy’s very heavy in-game sword, but it ends up implying the grip used to hold a controller. This gives the Smash Brothers poem actual poetic validity, which both annoys and pleases me.
- I wonder why I specified “blackberry bush” in my first poem?
I like that my seemingly serious attempt at a poem about death/hell devolved into a stupid comment about my high school creative writing classroom, but my stupid anecdotal poem about a character I hated in Smash Brothers resulted in the creation of some actual legitimate poetry.
I’ve always been told that the best material comes from your passions. I was VERY passionate about Smash Brothers in high school (and college… and now), so I guess it makes sense that some semblance of creativity would have come out of me when writing about Roy.
…still feels totally ridiculous, though.
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This post is part of Cody’s “10-Year Idea Reunion” series, in which Cody revisits his creative writing class assignments exactly 10 years after writing them. Learn more about Cody’s Idea Reunion and follow him on WordPress to follow along!
Greek philosophy and a poem about semicolons
Whether or not you like my (10-year-old) poetry, you will likely find something you enjoy in this post! That’s because the top half of my page of notes contains timeless quotes about life from Greek philosophers, transcribed here:
“Actions always planned are never completed.” -Democritus
“Old men were once young, but it is uncertain if young men will reach old age.” -Democritus
“The path up and down is one and the same.” -Heraclitus
“Nature likes to hide itself.” -Heraclitus
“The world is change; life is opinion.” -Democritus
“Theraclitus said that a man’s character is his fate.” -Stabeus (?)
“[Parmenides] speaks of perceiving and thinking as the same thing.” -Theophrastus
“All things were together. The mind came and arranged them.” -Anaxagoras
“Worlds are altered rather than destroyed.” -Democritus
“Dark and light, bad and good, are not different, but are one and the same.” -Heraclitus
Whoa, we’re starting to get deep, aren’t we? I have no clue how these quotes tied in with the poem I wrote below them (if at all); nonetheless, here it is, transcription following the image:
Top half: the ideas of great philosophers. Bottom half: my poem about semicolons.
Transcript:
Poor, deprived semicolon
There isn’t even punctuation in Latin
So then, why, Anaxagoras?
The mind came,
Arranged everything
So then, why?
Punctuation, arranged for granted?
Taken for granted?
Taken at all?
The mind needs a mean
By which it can arrange;
How, then,
Is the semicolon neglected?
Rejected?
Disrespected?
Why, Anaxagoras? Why?
…why?
A few things:
- Did Anaxagoras invent written language? No[t that I can find using Google]. Does my poem suggest this? Yes. Do I know what to make of this discrepancy? Hell no.
- For the uninitiated, Anaxagoras was a Greek philosopher best known for having a totally badass name.
- I took a Latin class my senior year of high school, and that is directly responsible for my use of the phrase “by which,” as we used a LOT of prepositions in that class. As a result, we learned to write by means of many prepositions (see what I did there?).
I used to LOVE writing semicolons in high school and college, but lately I’ve become a huge fan of using colons. Not just to introduce lists, mind you; my use of colons is much more advanced than that. Of course, right now I can’t think of how I could purposely write a sentence to utilize a semicolon, but that just means you’ll have to keep checking my web site for more updates so you can spot ’em when I write them!
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This post is part of Cody’s “10-Year Idea Reunion” series, in which Cody revisits his creative writing class assignments exactly 10 years after writing them. Learn more about Cody’s Idea Reunion and follow him on WordPress to follow along!
Cody Gough (dot com) 