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Professor Roy and the Amazingly Bad Poetry Journal

18th August, 2007. 6:42 pm. ABPJ Review - Forever

Today is National Bad Poetry Day in the United States. I saw this noted in a bookstore today, but I can't find any confirmation that it actually IS the National Bad Poetry Day. Anyway, it's also the 520th birthday of Virginia Dare (1587-?). She was the first English child born in what would be the United States. ANYWAY...

Forever
by Katrina; unknown location

As you grace your hand down my neck
You kneel down before me
You whisper in my ear of your truest love
And tell me how long you have wished for her
You then sit back and take a deep breath
As you look into my eyes, a tear rolls down your cheek
You wipe your tear and place it on my lips
Then you say the sweetest words, I love you
I then sigh with amazement
Wondering how could I ever be love again
It felt good to hear, but hurt to believe
Wanting to accept, but scared to open up
I still say I love you
A shiver runs through my body,
That feels so good I cry
I so much don't want to be hurt again
And I now hold a shield around my heart
Please treat my heart as if it were your own
And be very gentle if you do these acts that I ask of,
And love me in return... I will be forever yours

I'd bet money on my belief that Katrina never read this poem all the way through. I think she probably skimmed over it once or twice but nothing was really absorbed. It's sort of the equivalent to bullshitting your way through an exam in college. While it's likely that this poem was inspired by a true-life event, Katrina gave it the same amount of scrutiny that I gave to the horrible essays I wrote for this piss-poor communications course that I took during my sophomore year. That is, almost none at all.

I don't make excuses for these poems but this is the only thing I can think of to explain the first few lines of this poem. Read the first seven lines over again, in defiance of Katrina's own clear apathy. I don't know about you, but it sounds a lot like the other person in this poetic opera is confessing that he loves someone who isn't Katrina (even though this isn't correct). Katrina refers to herself in first person and third person alternately, in deference to the emotion of the situation (I guess). "You whisper in my ear of your truest love / and tell me how long you have wished for her." - the first time I read this, I was convinced that we had a nasty breakup poem on our hands, with some lust and infidelity in the mix. Wait, I thought, if he's confessing his love for someone else, then why is he groping her neck? Is he planning to strangle her right after he breaks her heart? What a great poem!

The idea that this relationship was a Jeep about to drive off a cliff was strengthened by the next lines where the whisperer leans back and inhales with what I imagined was a rueful air. "Sorry, babe," he might be saying, "that's the way the cookie crumbles. Better luck next life." But then he's crying. What? Why is he crying? Could he be ashamed? Wha-? If you're reading this review without having read the poem, I'm not pulling these ideas out of thin air. This poem actually DOES read like this. But it turns out that they actually love each other and he proves it by forcing her to swallow a tear from his eye, which is incredibly disgusting. Some boyfriends might get their love a dozen red roses, or a tennis bracelet or tickets to WWE Summer Slam, but this guy is way too suave for anything so generic. Here's one of my tears. Straight from my limbic system to you, baby.

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

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