I'm Not Worthy

'This egg probably represents something really profound. Except that it doesn't.'

I have now been immersing myself as much as possible in the world of poetry for a few weeks, and something has come to my attention. There's a lot of very 'worthy' stuff out there. It seems that every published poem has to have a political message, or explore the innermost nihilistic thoughts of the artist, or be so abstract and vague that the poet may as well have written the word 'trout' over and over again.

I've had great difficulty finding anything whimsical, frivolous or amusing; something that exists purely to entertain. The closest thing I've found is ctrl+alt+del, which I highly recommend. It's available as a PDF, and its creators encourage people to print it out and spread the love.

During my recent adventures I attempted some 'worthy' poetry of my own, but it's not something that comes naturally to me, and hasn't been particularly well received. Also, writing this kind of material makes me feel like a fraud. I can't escape the feeling that 99% of the people who write this stuff (including me) are straining to be as obtuse as possible, without arousing suspicion that all they're really doing is trying to impress.

This opinion may be very unfair. I intend to look into the academics and 'science' of straight-edged poetry in more detail before I write it off completely. In the meantime, I will continue to knock out whimsical nonsense like this:


My Eggy Friend and Me

I found a very egg-shaped egg,
as egg as egg could be,
and everywhere I, Eggbert, went,
my eggy came with me.

We trounced them in the egg-and-spoon,
whilst mother egged us on,
then dozed off in our eggy bed,
to mother’s eggy song.

One eggy day I dropped my friend,
upon the eggy ground.
He smashed into an eggy mess,
and clumsy Eggbert frowned.

I frowned not for the eggy mess,
nor for my eggy wrong.
I frowned because my friend produced,
a horrid, eggy pong.