Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2003-12-11 11:41 pm
azurelunatic) wrote2003-12-11 11:41 pm
Parody poetry
When someone writes an alternate version of a well-known poem, I expect to see some adherence to the original form.
I expect to see the same or similar rhyme scheme.
I expect to have it scan to the original, or very close.
I expect it to have something to say about the original.
If I don't like the contents, I'll come down extra-hard on nitpicking any of the above.
I mean.
Little things like that work.
But I ran into an internet-passed-around poem in a community that had lines in couplets that didn't scan against each other, let alone the original. It was also a heartwarming ball of mushy ook that would piss off the childfree groups and poly families alike.
Be proud of me in that I only commented that it didn't scan. What cheesed my weasel was when the dear sweet person who posted it told me that if I selected it, then pushed control + c, clicked my mouse where I wanted to put it, and then pushed control + v, that should work. I nobly refrained from flaming her saying that she was an idiot and the stupid shit poetry should go behind a cut tag, and instead explained that she'd mistaken my meaning, and a vague idea of what I'd meant. She had thought the poem cute, it developed. I nobly left it at that I rarely took well to anyone else's notion of 'cute'.
I expect to see the same or similar rhyme scheme.
I expect to have it scan to the original, or very close.
I expect it to have something to say about the original.
If I don't like the contents, I'll come down extra-hard on nitpicking any of the above.
I mean.
'Twas the night before Solstice, and all through the mansionNow, who noticed that the first and second lines have one more syllable each than the original? I doubt that very many of you would catch that on the first time through. That's because it's an extra syllable at the end, and effectively two eighth notes instead of one quarter note, and it's the same number of beats in the couplet.
The filkers were searching for rhyme and for scansion
The 'Working' signs blinked on the fic page so bare
But they hoped that their Muses soon would be there.
The writers were tapping, eyes fixed on their screens
Or visions of characters danced in their dreams;
As the good mods and I, with our user clue bats
Had just compared this to the herding of cats
...
Little things like that work.
But I ran into an internet-passed-around poem in a community that had lines in couplets that didn't scan against each other, let alone the original. It was also a heartwarming ball of mushy ook that would piss off the childfree groups and poly families alike.
Be proud of me in that I only commented that it didn't scan. What cheesed my weasel was when the dear sweet person who posted it told me that if I selected it, then pushed control + c, clicked my mouse where I wanted to put it, and then pushed control + v, that should work. I nobly refrained from flaming her saying that she was an idiot and the stupid shit poetry should go behind a cut tag, and instead explained that she'd mistaken my meaning, and a vague idea of what I'd meant. She had thought the poem cute, it developed. I nobly left it at that I rarely took well to anyone else's notion of 'cute'.
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I was going to say something about how it was at least somewhat reasonable that the person didn't know what "scan" meant, because she was just commenting on someone else's poem, until I reread your post. Admittedly, you've implied that she didn't write it, only forwarded it. And some people actually like squishy snuggly poorly-made ooze. But still.
If you are interacting with poetry as anything but a consumer, you should know this meaning of the word "scan". If you cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die promise not to show it to anyone, teen angst death-and-love poetry might escape this rule. Your poetry doesn't have to scan, especially if it's free verse, but you do have to know what the word means. *shudder*
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I still think everyone should know it, but I think it can be filed under "n% of kids don't know that Africa isn't a country," rather than "some people are stupid and pretend to be interested in subjects without studying them in the slightest."
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I've got to dig up a copy of my father's heavy boots story one of these days. (Basic line: somebody noticed that a TA at their (Ivy League) college was giving homework help based on a wrong idea of how gravity worked on the moon. The somebody started asking people what they thought would happen to a pencil dropped on the moon: hang there, float away, fall normal speed, or fall more slowly. To those who gave one of the first two answers, the next question was, "You've seen pictures of astronauts walking on the moon. What's up with that?" A third of the answers were, in some form, "The astronauts didn't float away because they were wearing heavy boots." The story is almost certainly an urban legend, but I'm afraid to see if it's true anyway.)
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::snickers at the image of an explorer sitting in the air yelling at someone to throw them something heavy, and please hurry::
Once I had a dream that a spaceship with a very strong magnet attacked my town, and everyone wearing metal floated away.
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It's basically a letter to one of Shawn's girlfriends, one who I actually got along with, about why I was mad at her originally, and why I can't hate her now. If not for the line breaks, it might be a decent letter.
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I expect to have it scan to the original, or very close.
I expect it to have something to say about the original.
If I don't like the contents, I'll come down extra-hard on nitpicking any of the above
I don't get it, it doesn't rhyme!
Just kidding. Regarding the actual poem, I didn't notice that, but I did notice the scansion (I think that's the word) on the last line of the first stanza, and to a lesser degree the third line of the second stanza. ('user clue bat' is pronounced 'USE 'er CLUE bat?!', not 'USE 'er clue BAT')
But I've been told before that poetry of mine doesn't scan, and been unable to see the problem, while I often can't figure out the scansion in other people's poetry, so I might just have a really weird sense thereof (I think I care more about which words should be emphasized than other people do), or it might be that half the poems in the world only scan when someone who knows how they're *supposed* to scan reads them out loud, or maybe I am just enjoying making this sentence run on forever, because this is the sentence that never--*BANG*
Thank you.
Heh heh. Anyway, I don't usually complain about other people's scansion because it always bothers me and then they read it out loud and I go "oh, that actually works okay, and these other parts are pretty awesome." But I'm in a snarky mood and you asked.
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I expect to have it scan to the original, or very close.
I expect it to have something to say about the original.
Otherwise this stupid bloody parodist poet I'll surely toast!
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Plus, if I hear it, the offending lyrics lodge in my brain and I can't get shut of them.
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And anyway, "screens" and "dreams" don't rhyme.
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...Two of my roommates are virgoes. Both perfectionists, though we're trying to train it out of the little guy.