Most Unusual Poems

What's the most unusual poem you've read? Why did you find it unusual? Tell us! All sorts of answers are welcome.

I'm going to kick this off with Dots and After Shocks by Carolyn Hashimoto.

This is a concrete poem based off of dots. It's very difficult to tell what exactly is happening in each part of the poem, as it is written somewhat non-linearly, in two differently-coloured columns that seem to go down forever. The broad subject matter is the experience of an earthquake in Japan, but there also seems to be links to a person's state of mind in general.

It's also unusual because the text mixes English with Japanese, and also seems to be made up of multiple texts, including a formal report and some text messages, with perhaps (?) multiple speakers.

Oh thanks for sharing that poem set Lim! It's really interesting, creative, and inventive how the dots interact with the text and then the shifting language too. Seems like a community of poems instead of a single speaker. I've been meaning to post in this thread since you've posted!

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A poetry book that has really interested me is "Groundspeed" by Emilia Phillips (though some of the poems are too mature for my taste- but anyways the book all kind of sticks with me anyways) - I read it several years ago and the book has a lot of interesting bodily musings along with thoughts on the external interstate landscape or environment that the narrator is passing through, and then sometimes those two spaces mix. Some of the poems are rather gritty, so I don't necessarily recommend it for all! There is an "unusual poem" in the collection that I found online so I'd like to point out though!

One of the poems, "Lodge" by Emilia Phillips found here is actually posted under the non-fiction category as a "Lyric Essay" though when I read it in the context of her poetry collection I definitely understood it as a poem - which already gives a bit of genre bending to the piece! (just re-read the book version and it's slightly condensed too).

It combines prose-poetry paragraph moments, with the text from interstate billboards and hotel signs and church marquees, and I think you're meant to reflect on how the external language and memory may be interpreted as bodily metaphor. The author was diagnosed with cancer and that features prominently in her poetry, as well as her brother's death, and the way that everything connects while at the same time feeling organic and uncomfortably disconnected is an interesting reading experience. The formatting also seems unapologetic, which sounds a little cliché, but what I mean by that is it's not good prose - it's random, and ugly, and there's all these loose threads, and weird formatting aspects and back tracks, but it does certainly create a certain feeling to be so inconsistent and very stream of consciences that comes across as honest.

Anyone else like reading about poets talking about their poetry? I do! You can read an interview from Emilia Philips about her poetry at front porch journal .

Ah I forgot to reply to this for so long, please forgive me - but I did give that lyric essay a look!

The formatting also seems unapologetic, which sounds a little cliché, but what I mean by that is it's not good prose - it's random, and ugly, and there's all these loose threads, and weird formatting aspects and back tracks, but it does certainly create a certain feeling to be so inconsistent and very stream of consciences that comes across as honest.

I definitely agree that the choice of prose to put in, and all the wide and unusual choices, added a lot of richness and effect to the poem. Though I read it a while ago, I still remember the sense of 'place-less-ness' given by the images of the motel room and street names.

Here is another very unusual poem I ran across today -> https://poets.org/poem/brd "brd" by Anthony Cody. I'm a big Anthony Cody fan after reading "Borderland Apocrypha" and I almost think a person has to have read some more of his work for this poem to have the depth / weight intended and not just seem like a gimmick. But all the vowels are stolen in the poem above and creates a sense of confusion, space, emptiness and loss. Cody's other poems also make very creative use of form and inspired me to attempt to write at least one poem in his style -> anchors tied to paper boats . I really like his imagination, and also how his language is really able to get at the heart of the issue he's describing in a creative and personal way. Definitely recommend reading some more of his work if you're interested in some more unusual poetry!

one of my favourite unusual poems is 'Grasshopper', by e. e. cummings. The formatting is so odd and jarring at first, but every time I read it i like it more and more. I really want to write something similar!

@Liminality am I imagining this or did we discuss that poem in a Poetry Readers discussion once? I know I discussed it on YWS somewhere at one point - but totally love that example @4revgreen - do you have any interpretations to it? Would be a fun poetry prompt to write something in that style. In recent YWS works I think @Ignorance work/Ignorance/from-the-eyes-of-a-chicken-154800#c738702 captures a little of that "from the perspective of a non-human poetry narrator" in the linked poem.

I think that the unconventional ordering, punctuation, and style of the words in the poem are all deliberate literary devices used by E. E. Cummings to convey the story of a grasshopper sort of forming and reforming and leaping about.

When you look into the poem it reveals the real order in a more basic format, which states "Grasshopper, who, as we look up now, gathering into the leaps, arriving to rearrangingly become 'grasshopper'."

I think I tried to write some similar things before where you can read it in different orders or just experimenting with form in general but i'm not sure where i kept them.

I found one! I wrote this a few years ago and you can read it a few ways. You can read it in order as it is, read just the bold, just the italic, with and without the parts in parentheses.

Immor(t)al men

Immor(t)al men still grow,
Still know
Still age, still breathe,
Still exist beneath
The stars.
Stillborn in a world of change,
Your life but rearranged
Fixed, untouched since (un)death,
Dead from their first breath
And ours.

(but they) Immor(t)al men were still born, at some point.

@4revgreen That's a really interesting poem! I kind of got more satisfaction out of reading your version than out of reading the e.e. cummings poem (possibly because I'm not to good at rearranging letters haha).

@lliyah yes we did discuss 'grasshopper' in the Community Poetry Journal club, I think!

yeah the rearranging letters part really stumped me at first aha. He has some other interesting poems where it's written phonetically so you have to read it out loud to actually understand what is being said. I'll see if I can find an example.