Monday, April 26, 2021

Day 26 ... NaPoWriMo / Poem-a-Day 2021


Robert Lee Brewer’s Poem-a-Day prompt: “[T]ake the phrase '(blank) World,' replace the blank with a word or phrase, make the new phrase the title of your poem, and then, write your poem. Possible titles include: 'Theme Park World,' 'Poeming World,' and/or 'Brave New World.' Have fun putting the world in a poem.”

Maureen Thorson’s NaPoWriMo prompt: “Today, I’d like to challenge you to write a parody. Besides being fun, writing parodies can be a great way to hone your poetic skills – particularly your sense of rhyme and sound, as you try to mimic the form of an existing poem while changing the content. Just find a poem – or a song – that has always annoyed you, and write an altered, silly version of it. Or, alternatively, find a poem with a very particular rhyme scheme or form, and use that scheme/form as the basis for a poem that mocks something else.”


Okay, mashing up both prompts as usual, but this time with utter, consummate silliness.

Out of this World

Star Warsh is a laundromat
where spacemen clean their spacesuits,
where Yoda washes his T-shirts and undies
and artfully scuffs up his boots.

Where Chewie buffs up his shoulder belt
and Han launders his vest,
where Luke cleans off his off-white leggings
and Leia bleaches her dress.

Star Warsh is run by Obi-Wan,
who always chants this motto:
“We keep you clean in Tatooine,”
sung with sweet vibrato.

After they get themselves spiffed up,
they board the Millennium Falcon,
then blast off to battle dirty Darth Vader,
and live happily ever afton.

—Draft by Vince Gotera    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]

A couple of footnotes: (1) Thanks to F. Scott Fitzgerald, from whom lifted the advert jingle, and (2) Thanks also to Dr. Seuss, from whom I learned this cool poetic lesson: if you can't find a rhyme word, make one up! (Shakespeare used to do it too, but his coinages often stayed in our vocabularies.)

C3PO Laundry Day — Guess he didn't make the laundromat.

Alan's poem today mashes up the two prompts, riffing on "We Real Cool" by Gwendolyn Brooks while also doing some trenchant social commentary.

We’re Q World
(Stay Out of Trenton, Georgia)

We’re Trump-trained. We’re
Bad-brained. We’re

Fake news. We’re
False clues. We’re

Greene-graced. We’re
False-faced. We’re

Q World. We’re
Pig-pearled.

—Draft by Thomas Alan Holmes    [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]

Friends, won’t you comment, please? Love to know what you’re thinking. Thanks!

Ingat, everyone.   


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3 comments:

Bruce Niedt said...

Two great poems - yours is fun as all get-out. (You say it spoofs a jingle by F. Scott Fitzgerald?) And I loved Alan's riff on "We Real Cool," and the message as well.

Vince Gotera said...

Bruce, Fitzgerald wrote commercial jingles (for radio?) before he was famous. One of his favorites among his own jingles was for a laundry: "We keep you clean in Muscatine."

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