The prompt: Write a 10-line poem that causes the reader to feel uncomfortable. In a paragraph, pinpoint the words/phrases/stylistic choices that arouse discomfort. (Thanks to Kate Girouard for this topic!)
walkin arownd
it soe hapenz i am sic of being a man
n it hapenz that i walk in2 tailorshopz n moovy
houzez
dried up waterprooff like a swaun maid of felt
stearring my way in a water of woomz n ashez
the smell of barbershopz makez me br8k in2 horse
sobz
the only thing i want iz 2 lie still like stonez or wool
the only thing i want iz 2 c no more storez no gardenz
no mo goodz no spectles no elvatorz
I feel an immense amount of discomfort when I view the above creation. Each time I typed a new word, I felt a part of my soul withering away. No capital letters? A travesty! Misspellings everywhere? Utter laziness! No punctuation? Blasphemy! Simple verbs? Way to buck the system, tough girl! And the worst offense: plagiarism? Get ready for the slammer, lady, because all of those angry Commie Neruda followers will surely press charges to the fullest extent of the law! The overall butchering of the English language? Time to bathe in the grammatical rules of the Almighty Writers Inc.! What could any of us find more uncomfortable than the complete deterioration of my English skills? Nothing. The loss of the skilled wordsmith would devastate us all.
Crucial sidenote: The results of the spell check I just conducted blinded me with its neon yellow mockery. So. Painful.
Neerrrrrrrrrddddd. Nothing personal.
ReplyDeleteH8rs Gonna H8.
ReplyDeleteNerd. Totally personal.
ReplyDeleteI find I have this issue when I text. Alas, I find the confounding gibberish of my sister and my friends cumbersome and hideous. I much prefer to type in fully punctuated complete sentences, even if it garners ridicule. Pity I can't seem to find it in me to pull out my own Writer's Inc when a particularly bothersome grammar point eludes me.
ReplyDeleteI always text in perfectly grammatical English, too! I bet that does not surprise you...
DeleteNot in the slightest
DeleteBorn 2 Text
ReplyDeletei fele comfurtibul
ReplyDeleteOh Ms. Serensky, if the above makes you feel uncomfortable my Twitter account and those of my friends would seem like a travesty to you. For starters, none of us properly spell our names and some of us use made up words. See in the twitter world, I go by @odangitslolang and my friends go by @oblissitsalyss, @oshickitssorick, @DontH8ItsSoN8, and many more. In addition, my friends created their names after mine; thus plagiarizing my idea of a rhyming Twitter name. Finally, I think the most disturbing fact about our twitter accounts: the fact that we had the desire to have matching twitter names in the first place.
ReplyDeleteThose names give me a headache. If I saw your Twitter accounts, I would have no idea what any of you wish to convey.
DeleteFight the system!
ReplyDeleteGrammar police, hide!
ReplyDeleteBeing a man...?
ReplyDelete