I’m no poet. In fact, I don’t much like poetry. It’s moderately boring crap, in my opinion. And don’t get me started on rhyming poems. Jesus. My third or fourth time through The Lord of the Rings, I even stopped reading all the Elvish poems Tolkien has sprinkled in there because of all the damn rhyming (well, except for the Fall of Gil-galad – that one’s still pretty cool).
But that doesn’t mean I can’t write poetry if I have to. So when I received the assignment in writing class for a “celebratory” poem (whatever that means), I tightened my belt, knuckled down, and wrote a damned good one. And since I learned my lesson in the last writing class, I left out all the bad words (except for one dumb-ass) and looked forward to hearing my work read properly.
I was wrong.
Again, I don’t claim to be a poet. But when you’re reading poetry, you should do it right. For example:
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I’m no poet
And neither are you
Notice the slight pause at the end of each line, where the reader has time to digest what she just heard? Now, how about this one:
Roses are red violets are blue I’m no poet and neither are you.
Not quite as catchy, is it? Well, that’s exactly how she read my most excellent poem. One endless page and a half long sentence, no pauses, no stopping to take a breath, nothing. She sounded like a frigging farm auctioneer. She read so long and so quickly that she actually started to turn blue towards the end and I thought she would pass out before finishing it.
I guess it’s my fault: I should have used more commas and periods.