The 2008 Bad Poetry Contest is still going on...
Don't wait until the last minute -- now's your chance to show off that lack of talent!
Give us your wretched rhymes, your lousy limericks, your hurtin' haiku. Every year at this time I celebrate my birthday by hosting the Bad Poetry Contest. We've got some absolute stinkers this year -- poems about monkeys in cages, acrostics about casseroles, and "fearsome fanged sparrows from the cliffs of Aldu-Hazziz." In other words, these are bad. Terrible. Rotten to the core. Just the way we like 'em. We even had one woman reveal that the love of her life looked her in the eye and told her, "They look like big blue bowling balls." (Um... it should be noted she THOUGHT the guy was talking to her about her eyes.) And to top it off, two of my students took time away from their end-of-the-semster studies to rhyme "final" with "vinyl." Does my heart proud to know I'm discipling two young up-and-coming bad poets.
Last year's winner was "Blind Puppy on a Freeway," which offered this inspiring chorus:
Love, love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love.
I don't know. Whenever I read those words (sniff), there's just something (sniff) that touches me (snort) RIGHT HERE (honk!). [For the sake of potential children reading this blog, we won't be showing pictures.]
Anyway, here's your chance. Rage. Emote. Show us your deepfulness. Greatness awaits. (So does a copy of Does God Speak Through Cats, which is this year's Grand Prize Selected Especially For You.) My 50th Birthday is Sunday, when I hope to be picking a winner, assuming I can still read and I'm not overcome by the fumes.
Poem away!
Oh the pressure!!
I sit on my couch trying to think of something witty
A perfect little ditty
To celebrate the half century of the life of a man named Chip.
But all I can think about is dip.
Lays, anyone?
Posted by: Danica/Dream | May 11, 2008 at 12:04 AM
Today's your big day. Are you a semi-hemi-centegenarian or something like that? To adapt something the great Sandra Boynton once said (on a coffee mug):
Hippo Birdies Two Ewes
Hippo Birdies Two Ewes
Hippo Birdies Deer Chipppppppp
Hippo Birdies Two Ewes!
I hope you're an animal lover. And if you were, you probably aren't anymore after that.
Posted by: Linda M Au | May 11, 2008 at 12:50 PM
Oh the pressure!!
I sit on my couch trying to think of something witty
A perfect little ditty
To celebrate the half century of the life of a man named Chip.
But all I can think about is dip.
Lays, anyone?
Posted by: Danica/Dream | May 11, 2008 at 03:04 PM
I like you bip
I like you bop
I like you like
A pig likes slop.
(Feels like I need to add "Burma-Shave," huh?)
Hope you had a great day celebrating and being celebrated. Happy Five-O, Chip!
Posted by: San | May 11, 2008 at 08:58 PM
Okay, so I admit I plagiarized my first poem. Now I will attempt to redeem myself with an original bad poem all my own.
Enmity
The serpent writhed on the cement slab--
Grey buttress 'neath our 30-gallon refuse
Containers--
And I saw red.
I sped away and returned
Triumphant with a sharp-bladed
Implement
Meant for
LIFE
But I used it for
DEATH
Hack'd hack'd hack'd
Until the serpent's life blood
Scrawled an arcane message
O'er the slab
In filigree scarlet
As my children stared in horror
At me.
Based on a true story, coming soon to a theatre near you!
Posted by: Stephanie Reed | May 12, 2008 at 01:42 PM