But after a few years, thankfully, you grew up. Your hormones settled. Your ass and thighs expanded. But best of all, you quit writing crappy poetry. Unfortunately, if you were like me, and brave enough to enter the world of trying to teach a new crop of high school kids how to appreciate real literature, you were, once again, subject to the mind-numbing torture of reading crappy poetry.
You’d be sitting at your desk, grading term papers and minding your own business, when a sniffling doe-eyed sophomore would sidle up to you while clutching a tear stained wad of paper in her hand.
“Ms. Jones,” she’d say, “I’m entering my poem in an online contest and I could win one-thousand dollars. Would you read it and tell me if it’s any good?”
Oh, Dear God, no!
But you smile and feign interest and take the paper from her outstretched hand. The poem would read something like this:
I loved you once
Now you’re gone
I don’t know how I
Can carry on
You promised me
We’d never part
Then you left
And broke my heart
At that moment, you realize that if poetry had a scent, this one would smell like vomit. But you smile again and tell her it’s sweet. You don’t tell her the truth because it would crush her already fragile heart. She skips back to her desk and grabs another piece of paper. To her, your admission that the poem is sweet is all the validation she needs that she is going to be the next teenaged Shakespeare.
Tell me, Ms. Jones, by refusing to tell this child the truth, what have you done? The next thing you know, she’s penned a whole book-full of crap, titled, “Musings of my Broken Heart.” Thanks to Amazon self-publishing, she can upload her spewing vomit and charge .99 cents to any hapless soul who accidentally downloads it.
Unfortunately, she will further spiral into self-loathing depression when only two people buy it. Who are those two people, you ask? Her mother, of course, and you. Yes, Ms. Jones, you created this monster, now you must carry on the charade and purchase her poetry.
This all could have been avoided had you told her the truth, or at least suggested an improvement, such as editing the last two lines.
You promised me
We’d never part
Excuse me ‘cause
I need to fart
Isn’t that revised poem much better?
Will she change it? Probably not. But at least you are not to be held responsible for her delusions of poetic genius.
Now I ask you fellow bards and sages to come up with a crappy poem of your own and leave it in the comments along with your email. At the end of one week (or two or three, depending on how may crappy poems I can collect), I will pick the crappiest of the vomit heap as the winner and you will win a free download of either Romance Novel or The Vampire Handbook plus an e-certificate deeming you the King or Queen of Poetic Mediocrity. How’s that for reaping the rewards of your literary genius?
** I suppose I should say the poem can't be too offensive. Although, if you've read some of my writing, you'd know it's pretty hard to be offensive around me. Still, if y'all turn in some totally sick f**ked up poems, I may just have to call the cops or, at the very least, disqualify your psycho poetry. For example, no doing nasty stuff with babies. We can't all be Hugh Hefner.
