Sunday 31 January 2010

The Banned List #4


Disgruntled Poets

I'm going off piste with this one, but I really do think that Disgruntled Poets (sp. Disgruntatum Poeticum) should be on the Banned List.

Only today, via carrier pigeon (email is so last year, dear) I received the following missive:

I'll beat the bleeping bleep out of you, you slimy, illiterate, talentless bleep... be warned; I've done time and been birched for sorting out bleeps like you who got under my skin ...

Five minutes later, another exhausted-looking pigeon arrived.

You think you are so bleeping witty but believe me when you are picking your bleeping teeth off the floor or lying on a hospital bed wondering were (sic) your bleeping kneecaps went to you wont (sic) be bleeping laughing...

And so on.

So far, so predictable. But I have a question that needs answering. In all my years of writing, performing and teaching, and having met hundreds of truly gorgeous, delicious, kind, funny, unusual, inspiring, modest, anxious, confident, sweet, talented, clever, boringly normal, barking mad poets of all genders, I have only ever met four (count 'em, four) Disgruntled Poets.

And all four of them have been men of a certain age.

I wonder if we could devise an equation to identify them? After all, they do not immediately appear Disgruntled. You are fooled by perfectly normal behaviour then suddenly - YIKES! - you are drowning in pigeon shit, parchment and feathers ...

4 comments:

  1. Darling Mopstop, this is horrific. I'm trying to think of a witty response but the horror just slips back in. BAD BAD BAD, WRONG WRONG WRONG.

    Have emailed you seperately with stronger stuff.

    ReplyDelete
  2. And the most horrific thing is that not ONE of those threatening phrases RHYMES, the SCANSION is all to pot. Spelling? - Don't go there - metaphors and similes? Negligible. And this man calls himself a poet? A POET??? I tell you, those pigeons were clearly ASHAMED to be delivering such tripe.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Santa Claus -
    Easter Bunny -
    God - Love - Honor - Dignity -
    I'm beginning to fear that when I get to -

    - Death -

    That'll turn out to be bullshit, too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mr Savant

    The poet in question would no doubt be DELIGHTED to publish you.

    (Usual fee in used notes, no scrap metal or book tokens, please do not ask for credit as refusal offends).

    ReplyDelete