Calling Vogon Prostetnic Jeltz

[unixronin]

....now acrostics are apparently being considered to be poems for school homework purposes.  Give me a break .... an acrostic is a word puzzle.

I suddenly find myself with a new-hatched dread of waking up one day to find that "Cat, dog shit oops I ment cow" [misspelling intentional] is now considered a poem.  The criterion of poetry seems to have dropped to "If someone, somewhere, regardless of whether or not they know anything about poetry or even about grammatically correct English, says it's a poem, then it's a poem."

Come back, Vogons, all is forgiven.  At least the "freddled gruntbuggly" poem had ... something.  (I'm not certain what it was, nor whether I really want to find out, but it had something.)

Oh freddled gruntbuggly, thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon, see if I don't!

---

Clarification:  I am taking issue not with the idea that an acrostic can be a poem, but with the idea that merely being an acrostic is sufficient on its own to qualify a collection of words as a poem, which is about as silly as saying that having doors is sufficient to classify an object as a car -- the quality "has doors", as a distinguishing attribute of car-dom, is neither necessary, nor sufficient.  So it is with "is an acrostic" and poetry.

Comments

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

Well, some English poets did write verse we'd think of as acrostics today. I'm trying to think of an example... OK, George Herbert wrote verse anagrams, acrostics, etc. and the Cavalier poets wrote a lot of acrostic verse. Are these examples shaped in any way other than as acrostics? Do they have to have specific line lengths, meters, or special word useage? At least they should get the kids thinking about fooling around with words.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Indeed they did. I'm not suggesting that an acrostic cannot be a poem; merely that "is an acrostic" is not a sufficient condition in itself to satisfy "is a poem", which is what these kids are apparently now being taught.

In that case...

[dakiwiboid.livejournal.com]

have your kid(s) go above and beyond. Suggest they add at least some meter or a regularized syllable count to the "poem". Working with the rigor of having all lines say, 7 syllables can be quite a challenge! Point out some of the examples of real acrostic poetry. Fill in the blanks that the school system is leaving!

Re: In that case...

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I've spent two days trying to flush even a single original thought out of Goose's head and get her to expend more than the barest minimum possible effort on this homework assignment that she thinks she can get away with. I'm stubborn and I'm persistent, but her studied, determined, dedicated laziness is wearing me down.

Re: In that case...

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

Awwww.

My heartfelt sympathies are diluted by knowing I'm not alone. Just wait till she's 15 and has learned a million more ways to dodge, delay, and wear you out.

Maybe you've lost this battle; maybe you should retreat now and cut your losses. Inspiration's capricious; a father's stubbornness and persistence have little chance of evoking it.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I respectfully disagree. An acrostic can be a poem, but just the fact of being an acrostic doesn't make something a poem.

This acrostic about George Washington (http://www.geocities.com/stlaasr/article-11-2002.html) isn't one I remembered from class, but it does show that acrostics have been considered poetry for at least 200 years. And this article at About.com (http://puzzles.about.com/library/weekly/aa000117.htm) lists an example of acrostic poetry dating back to the 1500s.

And an article at a Worldwide Church of God site (http://www.wcg.org/lit/bible/poet/psalms3.htm) claims that acrostic poetry even appears in the Bible:

Psalms 37, 111 and 112 are wisdom psalms with an acrostic pattern; each verse begins with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. This pattern made the psalms easier to recite.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I respectfully disagree. An acrostic can be a poem, but just the fact of being an acrostic doesn't make something a poem.

My point exactly (though I evidently didn't state it clearly enough). While an acrostic can be a poem, being an acrostic is in and of itself neither necessary nor sufficient to be a poem.

[elegantelbow.livejournal.com]

Dude. We did acrostics in school when I was a kid. I don't think this is new. I think this is old-fashioned busy-work.

I'll admit I prefer the haiku form. I once wrote one about donuts.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not suggesting acrostics are new. I'm just grumping at the idea that an acrostic -- with no requirement that it have anything whatsoever poetic about it, just any old plain, vanilla generic acrostic -- now satisfies a poetry assignment.

As for haiku .... we did tech support completely in haiku for about half an hour in undernet #callahans once. :)

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Lazarus, now known as Jubal, sent me the log. I've got it at /home.

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

Evidently you haven't encountered the phenomenon of kids getting credit -- in freaking high school, for heaven's sake -- for including illustrations in their book reports.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Now that you mention it, no. Though I suppose as long as it's topical, it's better than some educational atrocities I've run across.

[jilara.livejournal.com]

I'm one of those silly people who believe that poetry is about *structure.* What a concept. Otherwise, it's monkeys fishing words out of a jar.

Twas brillig and the slithy tothes
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe...

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yup, same here....

"Monkeys fishing words out of a jar." Yep, that fits a lot of so-called "poetry" I've seen.