And the winner is...

Wow. I must say, there are a LOT of bad poets out there. In case you didn't read them, this year's entries in our annual Bad Poetry Contest brought us verses about dead cats, naked cucumbers, and constipation (keep pushing, anita). Jimmy Jacobson brought us zombies, and one deep thinker offered his thoughts on "Ned the Hamster." Sensitive and reflective author Cathy West, ruminating on the industry, penned these moving words: Dear Writer, as you think you are, I shall tell you kindly from afar, You Suck. You're awful. Terrible. And you stink too." 

It's exactly that type of thoughtful work that has made my annual Bad Poetry Contest such a popular stop for those people in the industry with serious drug problems -- er, I mean, for people in the industry with a serious appreciation for deep and meaningful what-have-you. If you're not aware, I do this every year the week of my birthday, and it's turned into a spiritually enriching time for people to write things such as Sina'i's deep thoughts on life: Puppies. Rainbows. Golden poop. 

That's it. The entire poem. I have no idea what it actually means, but in my life I've had my share of each -- sometimes all at once, I suppose. And it's that sort of mindless tripe our college lit professors drilled into us, explaining how the words of sensitive poets reach out across the miles to unite us all in, um, something. (I could never stay awake in poetry class, so I'm not sure what it's uniting us in. World peace, or membership in the Trilateral Commission or something. But that's not the point.) The point is that we got to see some really, really bad poetry here. 

Oh sure -- there were some folks who don't get it. There are those who are purposefully funny. Some write bad country-western lyrics. Others feel a deep need to write something akin to "Chip's birthday makes him so old, I hope my poem is really bold." Those people won't win THIS poetry contest. (Those people will no doubt wind up in hell, but that's for another blog.) The best bad poetry is reflective but purposefully shallow. Thoughtful, but only for someone with the brains of a cocker spaniel. It takes itself seriously, but doesn't seem to realize the rest of the world thinks it was written by a thirteen-year-old girl. And it's THESE folks who stood out in a crowd, declaring, "I'm a bad poet, and I want the world to know!"

So, after much debate and a couple very tasty birthday margaritas, I present to you our TOP TEN BAD POEMS OF 2009...

10. Nicole's The Bad Dump was not only truly wretched, it contained this image: 

Now I lie on the heap with the refuse of other broken hearts.

Shredded plastic bags and full diapers.

Dumped like me. 

Not everyone can offer such a tasteless picture. It will long be there, lodged like a stone in the kidney of my mind. Nice work, Nicole.

9. I really wanted to give this spot to my daughter, Molly MacGregor, who brought us an epic poem from Iceland (a country she's never visited), or to my sister, Cindy MacGregor, who has been to Iceland but, for reasons I'll never know, chose instead to write references to Frank Zappa's "Moving to Montana." However, new Federal Bad Poetry Laws prohibit me from offering them a spot on my top ten list. So instead, this will have to go to Daniel Gereige, who lives in Australia and couldn't figure out that the Annual Bad Poetry Contest is a joke. So he wrote in to tell us all to buy a copy of his new book,which he said contains "deeply enlightened poetry." I just want you to stop and think about that for a moment... He's so remarkable dense he thought this contest was worth joining to enhance his career, but he claims to have written something that's not only enlightened, but DEEPLY enlightened. Uh-huh. I'm hoping by now his mom has taken him aside and explained all this to him. You win the stupid award. 

8. Any poem that contains such thoughts as "I'm deeper than the stain Embedded deep in the carpet" is sure to capture some attention, and Melissa Kerkhoff's paean to her own wonderfulness reminds me of being back at Patrick T. Brown Junior High. As she puts it to eloquently, "I'm not bound by simple rules Like poetry having consistent rhythm and rhyme." You rock, gurlfriend!

7. The fake depth and underlying anger of Stephen came out extraordinarily bad in his poem for the advent season: "Endless, endless are the tears that drop like sweet and sour sauce from an overfilled plate on the long walk between buffet line and a corner table where I sit alone." Not only does he promise to form words "with Scrabble tiles and hot-glue each word to your cubicle wall," but he offers this profound bit of cultural insight: "Sighing, sighing, sighing, sighing, and then finally remembering to inhale to keep from fainting like a first-time author on Oprah's couch." Terrible. Really bad. I salute you, Stephen. 

6. In the top group must be included the melodious meanderings of Hajid Kirduz Mesechnohech, who brought us this bit of doggerel: 

Then did Hajid lace up sneakers,

take swig of fermented goatsmilk,

and straighten best red-tasseled hat.

He took wooden harp from pack and 

began to sing song of salt and

barbed cockroach of Adlu-Haziz.

Soon Bildar was weeping like small

castrated goatling. "Please stay and 

sing songs all my days," he outcried.

"Nay," spake Hajid. "But you can buy

book or CD from my website." 

Then handed business card to snake.

I think we all can pretend to get a deep and meaningful lesson from those words. [insert nod here]

5. Demain Farnworth's The Don Juan of Motor City made everyone's top five. The judges were particularly impressed with his deep imagery: "I'm spicy like taco meat." Nice.

4. Last year's winner, MEC, came back with another bit of adolescent-inspired meaningfulness, including these lines:

I was me, so was she,

that dead body in the car.

I could not understand

why they left her alone

so long they forgot her

and she died right there

and only a few rings on her toes

to identify who she was.

I liked the heart one best. 

Not bad enough to win our Grand Prize, but a really awful poem none the less, MEC.

 3. Kay Day won third place by bringing a sensitive note to the proceedings with:

Someday I will once again

walk in the brightness

of happiness

I will walk like a girl who is happy

like a girl with ballet slippers on her feet

and I will think only of love and joy

rainbows and kittens

Someday when my precious boy stops puking. 

Awful! A Truly Bad Poem, Kay. Fabulously bad. Thanks for your participation. 

2. In second place (and it's always important to have a strong second place finisher, since should our first place winner be unable to fulfill the demands we place on the champion, the second place person is responsible to poke fun at the schmuck) is the immortal Fred Gippler, for this total stinker: 

Blue

The color of rainbows.

The color of her soft lips as she drove us to Taco Bell.

That

Last 

Time

Never forgotten, the moment, frozen in the infinite voice of space, as she chewed

the chalupa:

"Jim, I don't love you."

My name was Tony.

Couldn't.

Finish.

My Seven Layer Burrito. 

The statement couldn't be taken back -- it stood there between us, as real and solid

as a unicorn. 

Bean dip dripped from her malformed chin onto my uncle's Gameboy.

My

Finnish

Uncle

Travis was his name.

My name was Tony.

There's something deeply stupid about that poem, so that it just sort of stays with you. Keep taking the medicine, Fred. 

1. And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, the winner of our Grand Prize (which this year is a lava lamp from Spencer Gifts)... RON BENSON for his truly retch-inducing poem about fish! Here it is, in case you missed it and need something to help you lose that lunch:

Walleye eludes me.

Slimy catfish, full of industrial toxins, jump at my lures.

Sucker carp, all bulding doleful eyes and slate brick scales, raise their fins to beg,

"Catch me! Catch me!"

A bluegill volunteers itself. Surrenders to my will.

But my heart is not satisfied. 

Walleye eludes me.

Why, oh why did I pay ten dollars

to register for the Freeland Walleye Festival Fishing Tournament?

Why, oh why did it rain all day that Friday?

Why, oh why did my nightcrawlers overheat in the car window,

congealing into a mass of gray flesh,

taunting me with their lifeless forms,

laughing from their Purgatory of worms?

Walleye eludes me. 

My wife says, "Curse the walleye and die!"

But I've spent too much already.

The license

The rod and reel

The tackle and the box to hold it

The really, really big boat

I must fight on. I must endure. I must be victorious. I must. 

Others pass by on the right and on the left.

They hoist their larder high, rubbing it in my face. 

"They're biting tonight!" they shout.

"You can catch 'em in your hands!" they scream. 

"My two-year-old caught a ten pounder!" one particularly large round specimen brags.

I fantasize about big hooks and poles

Big stinky fishermen being landed with big nets,

De-scaled, gutted, coated with corn meal and friend delicately. 

Walleye eludes me. 

Consider the deepfulness. Ponder the reflectivosity. Meditate on how long the guy worked on a Really Bad Poem. I'm WITH you, Ron -- walleye eludes me, too, and I don't even fish. And that's why you're the winner of this year's grand prize. The lava lamp will NOT elude you, my friend. You are the 2009 Bad Poetry Champion. Take your bow. 

chip

Comments

[Sharon A Lavy]

I have been out of the loop for a few weeks. Sorry to have missed all the submissions but Chip you have chosen a grand top ten.

[Cindy Thomson]

This reminds me of when someone submitted a truly bad poem to me, asking me to include it in my soon to be published book. I wish you had been my agent back then!

[Ron Benson]

My acceptance speech:

Oh my goodness! (Clutching chest—heavy breathing) I can’t believe it! (Tears now) You hate me, you hate me, you really hate me! (Grabbing lava lamp from Chip’s hands and kissing it) Thank you so much! (Kissing Chip)

I want to thank my friends and family – thank you for loving me despite my poetic ineptitude. Look Mom! All those piano lessons finally paid off!

I would like to thank all the walleye in the Tittabawassee River for not noshing on my bait. I’ve won now, so please feel free to respond to my enticements. Please?

I want to apologize to my wife, my church, my editor, my family, and my dog-—all of whom I neglected horridly whilst I toiled the ten minutes it took to write the poem.

I want to thank Chip, without whom this prestigious award would not have been possible, and especially Chip’s mother, who birthed him and launched a legacy. Chip, I don’t know why you would spoil your birthday every year by reading all this tripe, but I will enjoy the lava lamp every day and think of you often as the glowing dough roils in the glossy muck.

I am humbled when I read the grossly awful work of my fellow poets. You are all truly the worst. I really can’t believe mine was as bad as all of your crap. I am surrounded by a great cloud of stink. I consider it an honor to even be included in your wretched canon.

I mostly want to thank God, who gave me the gift of truly rotten poet skills. (music starts) I want to say hi to (music is louder) Gary in Uganda (music amplifies to deafening) and . . . (Ron is hustled quickly off the stage).

PS – The following typos need to be fixed in my poem, as long as they don’t fix it so much that it becomes good enough to be disqualified from the Bad Poetry competition: Line 3 – "bulding" should be bulging. Line 30 – "friend" should be fried. Thank you.

[Demian Farnworth]

Though I'm a bit bitter I didn't get first place...nor a lava lamp...I do feel I'm in good company with really bad poets.

That's a good thing, right? ;-)

Well, the only person I have to thank for my poetic smut is my wife. She cooked the taco meat I was eating when I wrote the poem. That means I'd still be in obscurity if not for that particular lunch. Then again, it might have been something like, "I'm tangy like tartar sauce."

Regarding next year, do we get brownie points if we send you a bottle of Guinness?

Thanks Chip.

[Tricia]

I will never get over this. Never. I didn't even make top ten. I even rhymed.I had a typo that I left as a creative smear. Apparantly you were too sober while reading my unforgettable can't-remember-the-title about some people, my book, or some such that took me minutes to compose. Minutes, I tell you.

I demand a re-read.

[Kay Day]

What does third place get? Like, a whoopee cushion or something?

I'm actually thrilled to have been chosen at all! There's no way I could beat the Taco Bell poem. It has haunted me since I first read it.

And the fish one. A masterpiece of despair. Congrats to Ron. He deserves something.

[Courtney Walsh]

Kay, I think you should at least win a bag full of chocolate covered grasshoppers or SOMETHING. Dental floss? Flarp? Flarp is very popular in my house. Let's go with that one! :)

congrats to all the er...winners...?

[Nicole]

I'm devastated. This is the BIGGEST dump ever!!!!

[Hajid Kirduz Mesechnohech]

Uncle Chip,

I am elated like goat in papyrus works. But am disgraced to once more be upped by arch-nemesis "Gippler" Fred.

Unto next year,
Hajid
www.HajidKirduzMesechnohech.com

[Lynn Rush]

OMG, this has been hysterical to watch. Love it.

[genny]

This made me laugh so hard. Especially Cindy's acceptance speech. Hilarious. :) Thanks!

[Angela Meuser]

My kids loved laughing at the poems and were truly horrified by Walleye. Thanks!

[Sandra Bishop]

Congratulations to all the losers.

I'm really hoping someone has already thought to compile all the non winners into a proposal and send it directly to Andy Meisenheimer for his consideration.

He loves this kind of stuff. Lives for it. The more sophomoric, the better, in fact.

[nicole]

I've never wished I could be bad at something before...until now! :)

[Sina'i]

Whoo!! I got a mention!!

Congrats to Rob and the rest of the Top Ten!

[Robbie Iobst]

Today I make a vow.

I will copy each of these poems and make a special file to put on my end table beside my bed. Before I fall asleep each night I will study these ten. For the next year I will learn, Chip. I will devour the truly bad poems and I will train my mind.

51 more weeks.

51 more weeks until I prove to myself and every other bad poet that I deserve a place in the top ten. I smell the victory.

Alas, it will be mine.

But if not, oh well. Good times, Chip!

[Ron Benson]

I smell it too, Robbie. But you're gonna make yourself ill with this regimen!

[Janet]

Hey! I know Gary in Uganda. Sat next to his wife at a memorable meal at a Chinese place in Ottawa. Seriously.

[MEC]

oh well ... i guess my little sister won't be getting a lava lamp for her birthday this year! :p

[Margo Carmichael]

I placed last year,
Now I am crushed,
But I lay on the beach
When each new poem
(Such as they're called)
Came rushing to the fore.
As sand lapped shore,
Oblivious, I
Delighted in the day
Of Gulf and sky
Little to know
The op had passed me by. (Sigh!)

[Pam Halter]

Congrats, Ron! I think you may have captured exactly what we writers go through while waiting for an answer from an editor.

I hoped mentioning a toilet flushing would give me an edge, but it didn't.

Looking ahead with exceeding expectation to next year,
pam

[Stephen]

Thanks for the top 10 ranking, Chip. I'm only mildly disappointed that I didn't make it into the top 5, but I understood from the moment I chose "advent" as my theme that I was risking a "lesser consideration" since we're heading into summer and an Americanized definition of advent (ie: Christmas) is one of the last things we want to think about right now (second only, perhaps, to George W.'s presidency). In light of that, a seventh place finish seems just about right, and also serves as sad-but-true commentary on a Christian culture that simply doesn't understand the 24/7/365 "advent" mindset that Jesus Himself encourages in Matthew 24:42, assuming I'm reading my heavily highlighted and notated Bible correctly. (Sometimes it's hard to read the original text. Bibles really ought to have bigger margins and wider leading. Note to self: Finish proposal for "The White Space Bible".)

Therefore, whenever I think of my seventh place finish, I'll be bumping it up three places because I'm pretty sure Jesus would be able to overlook the misappropriated advent bias to see the greater value of the beautiful agony embedded deep in my poetic verse.

Fourth place! It's just the sort of non-biblically-significant number ranking I've always wanted!

[San]

Oh my word. The acceptance speech was as good (bad) as the poetry. Quite the feat.

Great stuff, Chip. Thank you for setting aside one day each year when we your readers can count on laughing out loud.

A blessing on your mother's head for her hard work, too. Hope you had a fab bday.

[Sidney/SydrycalWorks]

Well, fine then Chip the Snip! See if I invite you to my estate sale.
May you all have 'naked cucmber' nightmares.
You are a salad of characters.
I'll just take my cucumber transformation
back. Away, to my humble but bitterly brave writing republic.
But I'll be Baaaaaaaaaaack.
Damn, I had colossal plans for that
Spencer lava lamp.
But I'm not completely broken.
I still believe that NOT all who wander
are lost.
Aposiopesis ya'll.

Sidney/SydrycalWorks
cheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeers.

[Ron Benson]

How The Bad Poetry Contest Lava Lamp Major Award Has Changed My Life

When I entered the Bad Poetry Contest I didn’t think I had a rat’s ass chance at winning–I was just too good. But alas – pride indeed goes before a fall, and fall I did—right into the winners’ circle.

I learned I had won first prize—a lava lamp—and I thought it a figurative prize, like Laugh-Ins “Fickled Finger of Fate.” I was happy just knowing that somewhere on a chart in—where?—heaven?—there was a list of Lava Lamp award winners, and Ron Benson was on that list. I never thought a real object was part of the deal.

So when a box arrived one day, long and lean and MacGregor on the return, I ran screaming from the house. “A lava lamp! It’s a lava lamp! A real one!” and I yelled so that the neighbors would hear, and jumped, and jogged into the street, where a car hit me and broke both my legs.

Now immobilized, I sit and stare at the lamp. I love its colors, its jello orbs, its sensual dance. My wife thinks it’s romantic. What a precious prize! It prompts me to practice hard, so that my poetry can get even worse. Poetry is all I have now until the casts come off.

It’s wonderful, Chip! Pictures at my blog! http://graceclinic.blogspot.com/