0007: 2007 - Year Of Revolting Poets Poem by Michael Shepherd

2007, he said, was a memorable year for poetry.

A world conference of poets held
somewhere NewMex way, came to the view
that the rhyming dictionary put altogether too
great a stricture on the structure
of verse, and worse;
it was time, for rhyme
(which came back into fashion
that year with a passion)
to be more relevant,
less of a white elephant;

so
all poets who
wrote in English
(including Strine)
were asked to define
what words should be allowed appropriately to rhyme.

It took a little time;
since they couldn’t agree about basic words
(some felt that ‘ words’ shouldn’t even rhyme with ‘turds’,
they thought that any such ditty
would be shitty;
some thought that such a possibility of rhyme was crap,
and would lead to poetic mishap)

So, first things first, what would be appropriate
to rhyme with love?
(which of course some pronounced luv,
others, lurve) :
some felt that rhyming it with ‘above’
had just a smidgen
of politically inappropriate reference to religion…

* * *

The whole idea was well meant
but you can see just how it went –

it took until 3006
even just to fix
after long debate upon it,
fourteen rhyming words to cover one suitable sonnet

by which time
those celebrated poets who did or didn’t rhyme,
while English tended to vanish,
were writing in Spanish
or Chinese;
bringing American-language poetry to its knees.

then vowelless txt
became the nxt
style
for a while
(which left poetry weakened,
bcs t cdnt b spknd) …

* * *

But I’ll have to cease this sorry tale;
I’ve a Hallmark card I need to mail.