Tag Archives: Scansion

Valentine’s Day Poetry Slam Special!

Roses are red Violets are blue Scansion's important And using an appropriate number of syllables per line so you don't sound like a doofus is too!
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Scansion’s important
And using an appropriate number of syllables per line and some semblance of competent syntax so you don’t sound like a total doofus is too!
We’ve written at some length about Übersicherheitführer Steve Seyler‘s unfortunate penchant for poetry. Today, in honor of this, the most poetic of American holidays, we’re highlighting an email exchange from the archives between Seyler and “Good News Joe” Mariani, showing that Richard Dawkins’s notion that cultural practices spread like deadly infectious agents must be taken seriously by serious people.
We'll be damned if we can figure out what this is.  Some trash on the street?  Anyway, this is to Joe and Steve as Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning were to one another. Rhyme on!
We’ll be damned if we can figure out what this is. Some trash on the street? Anyway, this is to Joe and Steve as Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning were to one another. Rhyme on!
For reasons that we can’t determine from the evidence at hand but in response to the unintelligible photo at left, Good News Joe sent Stevie the following billet-doux:

Steve works so hard
Whether he is near or far
I wish he could go to a lake
Or maybe a Vegas escape

Lack of metrical structure? Check. Unintentional partial rhymes? Check. Unthinking use of brain-dead advertising-slogan phraseology as if it were human language? Check. Complete and utter tin-ear-itude? Check, check, check. He’s learned well from his master, whose classic response may be seen after the break.
Continue reading Valentine’s Day Poetry Slam Special!

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