All questions we need to strike forever from our cultural lexicon. But since you asked, I'll tell you, I'm in the midst of an epic morning in the kitchen. Sourdough discard blueberry pancakes have already happened, and Andy can confirm they were a success. I ate about 7 pounds of blueberries while I was making the pancakes and didn't really want any after seeing how the sauseeg is made, ya know? [So much butter.] As soon as I hit 'publish' on this jawnpiece, my plan includes bottling kombucha, brewing a fresh batch, and then whipping up some sourdough to rest overnight and bake tomorrow.
As you may recall, I named my sourdough starter Nellie Cashman. When I write out my Docket of Shit To Do for the following day (is that a normal thing to do?) I like to write things like 'feed Nellie' or 'bake Nellie's baby' (which is definitely not a normal thing to do). So I'll be giving Nellie's baby the steaming Dutch oven treatment tomorrow.
Now, for the reason we are gathered here today - the prompt, which comes from poet/journalist/crossword lover (hey girl hey) Adrienne Raphel.
Prompt: Write a bad poem. What does a “bad” poem mean to you? Interrogate that. Is it a poem that sounds like a sappy greeting card, starting with “Roses are red,” or “How do I love thee?” Maybe “bad” means something about form to you. A poem with too much rhyme in it, so every line is a singsong. Or maybe a bad poem has no form at all, so the lines wander across the page, maybe in your least favorite font (Comic Sans?), the tackiest color (neon purple?), or the worst pen (blunt Sharpie?).
Or maybe “bad” isn’t about the shape or the quality of the writing at all, but about the content. A “bad” poem might mean saying the things you shouldn’t say, or feeling the things you’re not supposed to feel, or copping to your pettiest, dumbest, most embarrassing complaints. Let your “bad” self say the thing you don’t let yourself say. If you want to swear, swear. If you want to write the word “NO” over and over for twenty lines straight, then—yes.
The badder the better. It might be so bad it’s good.
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One might argue that I've already written plenty of bad poems in nearly every sense. Painfully earnest AIM profiles in the late 90s. Some precocious BS about nature that got published in a pay-to-play hardcover collection advertised in the Sunday comics when I was 9 (yes, my mom still has it).
Vulgar poems, poems about weed. I did a whole stand-up set of "high-kus" on April 20th a couple years ago.
at my weed guy's house
wishing I had brought some snacks
Flaming hot Cheetos
hotboxing my dog
think he might just be a narc
can't he just chill out
who smoked all the weed
why is the dog throwing up
guess he's not a narc*
*No animals were harmed during the ideation of these fictional poems
So when we have permission to go all out, be as bad as we wanna, well, where to start? My instinct, ever juvenile, is to write a shape poem. One that is filthy in both contour and content. Here we go. Explicit warning:
For those of you with limited neck mobility, here is a transcription.
Bird #1
explain to me how in the movies
when a man and a woman have sex
they just lay there afterwards for a long time
y'all, don't you need to clean up?
Bird #2
I have some unpopular opinions I'd like to share
for starters, I don't think babies
are cute
wearing a bra is actually way more comfortable
than free-nipping it
also, fuck cupcakes
always a dry disappointment
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