Home
  Journal   Friends   Calendar   User Info   Memories
 

Professor Roy and the Amazingly Bad Poetry Journal

7th November, 2006. 8:45 pm. Amazingly Bad Poetry Review - The End

The End
by Michael; Champlain, OK

I have written many poems through the years,
Some in laughter and some in tears.
Through the pain's and pleasures of my life,
I decided to share and no longer hide.
That I have feelings good and bad,
It's ok to cry it's ok to feel sad.
It took so long before I could share,
For they were my feeling's why would you care.
But now I have come to see,
We're not that different you and me.
So if from my poems you laugh or smile,
To me it makes it all worth wile.
If by chance they were to make you cry,
Then use my shoulder to dry your eyes.
Well my friends I must say goodbye,
And don't ever give in to foolish pride.


I might compliment Michael on his pure earnestness. But that's not how we play this game. If the ABPJ was a castle, it would have "Abandon all hope ye who enter here" written on the gates. This poem reminds me of the poetry of the late child writer Mattie Stephanek. Mattie, who died a couple years ago from a rare form of muscular dystrophy, gained recognition with his books of inspiration poems, saturated with his simple wisdom and optimism in the face of terrible adversity. Several of these books were NY Times bestsellers. Now, before you read any more, don't misunderstand me... I am not questioning this young man's bravery for a second, and I have nothing but sympathy for his family and friends (including Oprah) especially considering his siblings died from the same condition. (God knows that if I was struck with something terminal I wouldn't leave anything behind besides donut crumbs. Oh, and I'd want to hang out with Joe Montana before I go. And an entry on Wikipedia.) I'm sure all the money earned off of Mattie by publicists, lawyers, and agents went imemdiately toward medical research and the Make A Wish Foundation. Yes, of course. Unfortunately for everyone involved, Mattie's poetry was terrible. Aside from his dying from this rare condition, there was nothing particularly unique or enlightening about his work. Still, alone, that would be excusable. But on top of not being very good, I'd compare the experience of reading his poems to being force fed a lollipop by a baby panda, then having a small bag of sugar poured down your throat by several baby koalas. I remember thinking, "How can this be so cloying and so hackneyed simultaneously?"

I'm not the first person to think this. The Onion lampooned him soundly with "Nation Afraid To Admit 9-Year-Old Disabled Poet Really Bad". This was when he was still alive. I imagine Oprah's assistants wrote several angry letters on Mattie's behalf. We have to stop rewarding children for maudlin efforts simply because they're children or somehow disabled children. Let's say that instead of being an wheelchair-bound adult when he published his major works, Professor Stephen Hawking was a wheelchair-bound 12-year-old who published a comprehensively researched theory that the universe is controlled by a gang of hyperintelligent Shih-Tzus. Would "A Brief History of Time" still be a bestseller? Then there was the famous Teen Movie Critic website, one of the first online movie critics, hailed by Yahoo and Roger Ebert -- except the author was guilty of flagrant plagiarism. He pled ignorance but he was still laughed out of town (and rightfully so).

ANYWAY, what was I doing here again? Oh, that's right, ABPJ review. Either our dear friend Michael has some sort of poetry.com fanclub or he has an ego the size of the Dakotas. I hate to have to explain to him that he is wrong in most of his assumptions. No, wait, I enjoy it. He assumes that his poems will invoke something more than a blank stare. "So if from my poems you laugh or smile, / To me it makes it all worth wile." What do I do if your poems make me feel empty inside? If I get post-traumatic stress disorder after reading one of your poems, will you pay for my therapist? He apparently believes that when shares a poem with me, we're immediately linked, like ET and Elliot. Do you require a signed contract before someone reads your poetry? Actually, maybe I've misjudged this poem because after reading this poem several times while writing this review, I really want to break down and cry hysterically. Then engage in some self-flagallation. There's something amazing about his naivete in the last line of the poem. First of all, surely he could have thought of a better word to rhyme with "goodbye." Second, if you blindly assume that your work is significant to anyone but yourself, I think that qualifies as foolish pride. Am I wrong?

"We're not that different you and me." - no, Michael, sorry, wrong. We are different to the point where I doubt your humanity--or mine. And I know how to use an apostrophe properly. No....whoa... hold a second, I've just reread this poem again and I think... I think I've had an eiphany. Read these lines again: "Through the pain's and pleasures of my life, / I decided to share and no longer hide.

That I have feelings good and bad, / It's ok to cry it's ok to feel sad." Oh my lord. Thank you Michael for enlightening us! Before I really really absorbed your poem, I believed that I had to repress even the slightest emotion (happiness, sadness, lust, anger, lust) because they were bad bad bad wrong dirty bad. But like Paul on the road to Damascus, the scales have fallen from my eyes! I have to tell the world! Hey WORLD! It's me! Professor Roy. The guy with the poetry journal! Yeah, I know you don't know who I am, that's okay! It's okay to have emotions! No, I'm serious! No shit!

Bad Poetry Grade [F = your standard bad poem; A+ = worst poem imaginable]: B

Read 2 Notes -Make Notes

Back A Day - Forward A Day