Armchair Poet

By the way,
I hope you
understand why
your favorite sports team
lost yesterday.
It's because you
didn't watch them,
didn't even listen
to the radio,
you thought that
checking the score
in the morning paper
was enough.
Well,
it wasn't.
They didn't report this,
but when the players
took the field,
they knew you
weren't watching,
and their morale
suffered
accordingly.
So yeah,
they should have won
if it weren't for you.
What was
so important anyway?
Your first child-?
please,
you have to be
a team player.

Uhh.. what? No, this isn't a poem. It's telling someone off with line breaks. Sorry.

Try again.
-KK

Smorg,


There's an idea worth pursuing here, but the current structure is completely opposed to the rueful wryness you've written with. The machine gun lines certainly don't help, and particular phrases should be changed or inverted ("suffered accordingly" is much better as "accordingly suffered", etc.).

The colloquial address is always a gamble, and I don't think the return in its current form justifies its use. "Your first child-?" is, for instance, too generic and ungrounded for an audience to identify with (and, accordingly, it's simply a waste of space).

The reference to Cobain is kitschy but doesn't really seem to further anything about the poem itself.

Consider dropping "By the way."


Take care,
Brad

Thanks for the comments!

***

KookieKatie: Really? I kinda see this as a conversation with oneself, not two people talking to each other. I chalk it up to paranoia.

Incan: The title was (and still is) a throwaway. I can't come up with one. Any better ideas?

You comments, are as usual on point and always slightly more eloquent then I dare comprehend. If you don't mind, I'd love to hear a more complete explanation on why I should drop the short line format. I've always personally appreciated faster poems that roll you along, and keep you moving- especially because I rarely put anything really deep explicitly in my writing. (I know your style is, quite clearly the opposite, and I can enjoy that too, but I do poorly if I try to mimic.) I like to try and be brief, if this is in any way witty... then brevity is, of course, the soul of it.

I'm going to keep the colloquial for the reasons I mentioned to KK, but of course, nothing is set in stone.

Are you sure you like "accordingly suffered"? It doesn't sound right to me.

***

Here's a combination and slight rework of the lines, does anybody like this better?
[spoiler]
By the way,
I hope you understand why
your favorite sports team lost yesterday.
It's because you didn't watch them,
didn't even listen to the radio.
You thought that checking the score
in the morning paper was enough.
Well,
it wasn't.
They didn't report this in the paper,
but when the players took the field,
they knew you weren't watching,
and their morale suffered accordingly.
So yeah,
they would have won if it weren't for you.
And what was
so important anyway?
The birth of your first child-?
Saving your marriage-?
You mother's fatal cancer-?
Please,
there are some things that are the most important of all.
You simply have to be a team player. [/spoiler]

***

EDIT: And thanks for the great comments in the next two.

I thought this was quite witty. I especially liked the end, and I much prefer the new line breaks.

Silly me, I didn't realise the speaker was talking to him/herself until you mentioned it, and now it only reads that way.

Well,

This is the only line break I don't line, although 'it wasn't' really has to be on its own line. Maybe you could just cut 'Well'?

it wasn't.
They didn't report this in the paper,
but when the players took the field,
they knew you weren't watching,
and their morale accordingly suffered.

I would have said 'suffered accordingly' as well; it seems to fit the tone of the poem better.

So yeah,
they [s]should[/s] have won if it weren't for you.

I think simply 'would' would be better here.

And what was
so important anyway?
The birth of your first child-?
Saving your marriage-?
The plague-?

I didn't really like 'the plague' - it seems anachronistic here. Just my reaction, though.

Please, (You could maybe change this comma to a dash, but it's actually OK as it is)
there are some things that are the most important of all.
You simply have to be a team player.

As I said before, I like the ending!

I thought this was funny, because it really is exactly what some people feel like in that kind of situation, despite the fact that seeing this thinking written down makes you realise how ridiculous it is.

Anyway, that's all I could suggest!

Smorg -


"Suffered accordingly" is horrific as a sonic. Listen to it: "Suffered" flows smoothly and then is abruptly cut off by the hard "ed." You then introduce a hard "acc" followed by a hard "ord" and then a soft "ingly." It's not particularly appealing to listen to, but if you switch it, "Accordingly suffered," you have a much more pleasing sound. "Suffered accordingly" sounds like a train wreck.

No doubt switching them has a certain effect: "Suffered accordingly" puts the suffering in proportion to their actions, whereas "Accordingly suffered" puts their actions in proportion to suffering. The former is superfluous.

Your short lines are jarring. They don't cause the poem to read faster - that's something your words alone will do (and how? through sonics, precisely, through words rolling into each other like a cascade), and the structure will only help or hurt (but won't make it happen). Just look at the first four real lines:

I hope you
understand why
your favorite sports team
lost yesterday.

What's the purpose of the enjambment here? It doesn't make the poem "read faster." To reiterate, we don't read a poem's structure, we read its words. The structure is far more valuable in amplifying and conveying the poem's situation: it effectively "situates" the poem, and it needs to do that with respect to the poem's meaning. The machine gun lines don't accomplish that; I'd say they works towards opposite ends...


Take care,
Brad