Sunday, October 06, 2013
Perfect example
Spokane newspaper's website celebrates the "work" of someone who has been officially named as the city's Poet Laureate. His "poetry" is a typical Facebook profile update. Just a few lines about what's happening today. It's not poetic in any sense of the word, and it's indistinguishable from most of the unpaid writing you can find in most comboxes on the Web.
Apparently this ordinary shopping-list stuff magically turns to poetry when you insert linebreaks in unexpected places.
Well then, let's see if I can make poetry. Start with some non-poetry:
Got up this morning. Short sleep because of gas pains. Peed, washed face, took BP pill, made coffee. Sat down at computer, decided to start a new little graphics project because mind has been insufficiently occupied. Started setting up a model of a coin-operated scale. Read that Northern Lights had put on a show last night. Opened back door, stepped out on porch, looked. Nope, nothing here as always. Disappointed.
The above is not poetry because it's not spaced funny. It's just a dumb list of what I did so far today, expressed in the terse checklist-like form I use when 'thinking out loud' or talking to myself. It's not even interesting to me, so I wouldn't presume that it could be interesting to anyone else.
Let's magically transform it:
Got up this
morning. Short sleep because of gas
pains. Peed, washed
face, took
BP
pill, made coffee. Sat down at computer, decided
to start a new little
graphics project because mind
has been insufficiently occupied. Started setting
up
a model of a coin-operated scale. Read
that Northern Lights had put
on a show last
night. Opened
back door, stepped
out on porch,
looked. Nope,
nothing here as always.
Disappointed.
The above is poetry because it's spaced funny and italicized.
Well, actually it still isn't poetry, because I'm not titled Poet Laureate. You can't do Art unless you have a title. When you have a title, everything you do is Art.
Spokane newspaper's website celebrates the "work" of someone who has been officially named as the city's Poet Laureate. His "poetry" is a typical Facebook profile update. Just a few lines about what's happening today. It's not poetic in any sense of the word, and it's indistinguishable from most of the unpaid writing you can find in most comboxes on the Web.
Apparently this ordinary shopping-list stuff magically turns to poetry when you insert linebreaks in unexpected places.
Well then, let's see if I can make poetry. Start with some non-poetry:
Got up this morning. Short sleep because of gas pains. Peed, washed face, took BP pill, made coffee. Sat down at computer, decided to start a new little graphics project because mind has been insufficiently occupied. Started setting up a model of a coin-operated scale. Read that Northern Lights had put on a show last night. Opened back door, stepped out on porch, looked. Nope, nothing here as always. Disappointed.
The above is not poetry because it's not spaced funny. It's just a dumb list of what I did so far today, expressed in the terse checklist-like form I use when 'thinking out loud' or talking to myself. It's not even interesting to me, so I wouldn't presume that it could be interesting to anyone else.
Let's magically transform it:
Got up this
morning. Short sleep because of gas
pains. Peed, washed
face, took
BP
pill, made coffee. Sat down at computer, decided
to start a new little
graphics project because mind
has been insufficiently occupied. Started setting
up
a model of a coin-operated scale. Read
that Northern Lights had put
on a show last
night. Opened
back door, stepped
out on porch,
looked. Nope,
nothing here as always.
Disappointed.
The above is poetry because it's spaced funny and italicized.
Well, actually it still isn't poetry, because I'm not titled Poet Laureate. You can't do Art unless you have a title. When you have a title, everything you do is Art.
Labels: TMI
¶ 4:28 AM
