Asymmetrical Information

From the desk of Mindles H. Dreck:

Taxidermist Barbie and Other Oddities

As homework, my son must find a sonnet, memorize and explain it. Together we looked through my Spenser, Donne and Wordsworth. Determined to make it a bit more fun, I googled some lighter examples of the form. Naturally, the internet is chockablock with comic sonnets. Here are some I enjoyed:

Shakespearean Insult

Thou art an artless, base-court apple-john,
Beslubb'ring all whose gaze thou looks upon,
Thou bootless, beatle-headed, bladder bug,
Churlishly boil-brained, clapper-clawed old slug!
Thou art so common-kissing, canker-clawed,
Dissembling, dizzy-eyed and mealy-mawed!
Thy dankish, dismal-dreaming, clotpoled ways
Are more errant, in thy unmuzzled daze,
Than any foot-licked, flea-bit flap-dragon,
Or gleeking, half-faced, hedge-pigged jothead on
A paunchy, ill-bred, loutish miscreant -
Thou ever moldwarped, spleeny sycophant!
Were thou less blind in thy bummed, venomed spleen,
Thou wouldst know very well ... it's thee I mean!

Howard Moss's "Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day"

Who says you're like one of the dog days?
You're nicer. And better.
Even in May, the weather can be gray,
And a summer sub-let doesn't last forever.
Sometimes the sun's too hot;
Sometimes it is not.
Who can stay young forever?
People break their necks or just drop dead!
But you? Never!
If there's just one condensed reader left
Who can figure out the abridged alphabet,
After you're dead and gone,
In this poem you'll live on!

Doughnut Sonnet No. 25 by Stephanie Scarborough
Parody of "Happy Ye Leaves!" by Edmund Spenser

Happy I leave with doughnuts in my hands
Which I will eat until my jeans are tight
And do so 'till my corpulence demands
I never, ever take another bite.
O happy day! On which I will not fight
My burning want to dine and binge and graze
On only jelly doughnuts through the night,
Licking the icing, relishing the glaze.
O happy joy! I could do this for days
Or months or years-- perhaps until I die
Which by that time my fatness will amaze,
And in a pile of crullers dead I'll lie.
I'll eat my doughnuts to please me alone,
And eat and eat 'til ev'ry doughnut's gone.

Taxidermist Barbie, by Stephanie Scarborough

She comes complete with purple plastic gloves,
A pink and shiny, glittery tool case,
A purple mounting board 'cause Barbie loves
The feel of pine as she begins to place
A severed deer head on the board-- Hey girls!
It's Taxidermist Barbie (insert cheer-
Y music here)! She can stuff birds and squirrels
And boys and girls! Just watch her mount a deer
Head on the mounting board, get the marble
Eyes just right. Her prices can't be beat, she
Just got Taxidermist of the Year! Marvel
At her mounted birds! But unfortunately,
Despite the fact she stuffs one kickin' swan,
Taxidermist Barbie never quite caught on.

Didn't Instapundit write a post on "Vigilante Barbie" back in the day?

The Funny Sonnet Debate by Keith S. Petersen

I wrote Fred Chappell: Fred, I said, I bet
you cannot even name, nor could you write,
a sonnet that is really funny, light
enough to let us chuckle and forget
how somber sonnets are, how filled with threat --
or blight or fret or flight or sweat or fright;
that makes us dance instead, soar like a kite
on laughing breezes sonnets won't beget.

Ole Fred, he wouldn't follow where I led.
I offered my can't-do poetic chore
and he'd not say, not so, or yes, agreed,
but burbled on to other stuff instead --
which grants the point this sonnet would explore:
No sonnet seeking laughter will succeed.

Posted by Mindles H. Dreck at April 25, 2004 7:45 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound links