Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 4

One has been most remiss
One whole day one has missed
A godawful host am I, alas
To let a godawful fortnight day pass
Without finding a moment in time
To add to the feast of mediocre rhyme

Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 3

The side-effects of the H1N1 influenza

You know what the worst
Side-effect of this burst
Of this oh so very
Unfortunately-
Named flu is?

It's the amateur wags,
And their lame borrowed gags
Littering the statusphere
Wherever you peer.
Gah.

It's even worse, you will agree
Than godawful poetry.

Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 2

I,
I write for you.
You,
You write for me?
We,
We both write?
Okay?

Godawful Poetry Fortnight - Guest Post 1

My humble contribution to this fantastic, much-looked-forward to annual event:

Banished

They dragged me with brute force to the door,
Callously kicked me down the stairs below-
And screeched like the oft quoted Raven, “Nevermore!”

I staggered to my feet and limped my way across the street,
With fumbling fingers groped for my pack of woe,
And struck a match- Ah, even in adversity life can be sweet.

So now I wander lonely spewing dark, belligerent clouds,
That lurk on high o’er the stained cityscape,
And insidiously creep into the lungs of the teeming crowds.

All I ask for is Keats' Grecian urn to tip the ash,
While contributing generously to the city's smog,
It wouldn’t hurt would it, that dead sexy touch of dash?

By Rupa Gulab who, incidentally is not blushing furiously, but rolling on the floor with mirth. Shameless!

Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 1

In a Godawful Mood,
Just not a Godawful Poetry mood.
But as the host, I can't be rude,
So here's my pseud-
o poem.


Godawful Poetry Fortnight

Son of Godawful Poetry Fortnight - 19th - 31st August

We launched the first Godawful Poetry Fortnight here last year. (You can read all our contributions here, and this was a brief article in the TOI about the Fortnight.)

Cut to the chase: it's that time of the year again!

The essentials:

• Godawful Poetry Fortnight runs from the 19th to the 31st August.

• Our Patron Saint is William Wordsworth.

And he gets this signal honour for saying that poetry "is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings." Way too many aspiring poets have rallied behind that banner, too few going so far as recollecting those emotions in tranquillity, let alone reading the rest of the preface to Lyrical Ballads (which can be found on Bartleby, for those interested).

• To join in, all you have to do is post on your blog* a godawful poem you have written, with—all totally optional—a brief note about GPF, a bit about what godawful poetry means to you, and a link to this post.

• Post godawful poems as often as you like during the Fortnight. (The True Believers Challenge: post thirteen godawful poems, one on each day of the Fortnight.) Squeeze your muse like a boil. Get it all out. Pester your friends to post too. Once GPF is done, you will write good poetry for the rest of the year, yes?

• Please use this Technorati tag on your post: Godawful Poetry Fortnight. Here's the HTML for the tag: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/Godawful+Poetry+Fortnight" rel="tag">Godawful Poetry Fortnight</a>

• To those who feel the need to point out this Fortnight lasts only thirteen days, we draw our cape around us, and say, in a marked manner, "Poetic license."

* I'd be happy to link to you if you tell me where your poem is.
If you don't have a blog, you're welcome to either use the comment space here or the Godawful Poetry Fortnight thread over at Caferati.

Close

Sunday evening, driving from St Xavier's to the office.

Peddar Road, Kemps Corner flyover, light traffic.

Car in front of me brakes suddenly.

Pretty much have to stand on my brakes to avoid a prang.

Mutter under breath. Traffic continues to move. Car in front sets off again. I nudge the accelerator. Coast down the flyover. Come to the the bit where the road rises again. See light ahead is orange. Start braking and gearing down..

Except that the brake pedal goes all the way to the floor without any reaction from the car.

Luckily for me, the light turns red and the cars around me stop. Luckily for me I wasn't going to fast, and neither were the cars around me. I cut through the red light, at the tail end of that bit of traffic flow. I continue to slow down. Turn on the hazard lights. Gently prod the accelerator just enough to keep the car moving up the slope until it crests. Simultaneously gently turning the wheel to bring the car next to the pavement. Pull up the handbrake and turn off the engine. Lean back. Shudder. Sweat flows.

The Chhattisgarh government has banned Charandas Chor

(Background: The story in the Hindustan Times and the Times of India

This came to us from actor Denzil Smith.

Press Release condemning ban on Charandas Chor

We are shocked to learn from press reports that the BJP government of Chhattisgarh has banned Charandas Chor, a classic of the modern Indian theatre, written and produced by Habib Tanvir. The play was first done in the 1970s, and is originally based on an oral folk tale from Rajasthan. Habib Tanvir worked on this tale, introducing into it elements of the art and beliefs of the Satnami community. Satnami singers and dancers have performed in this play, and it has been seen by members of the community several times. In Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, there are several rural troupes who are today performing some version of this play.

The play itself is the story of a thief who, under the influence of a guru, pledges never to tell a lie. He sticks to his pledge, even at the cost of his life. This superb tragic-comedy, in a thoroughly entertaining and artistic manner, brings into focus the moral and ethical degeneration of our society, in which, paradoxically, it is a thief who ends up being more honest than those who supposed to be the custodians of our morality.

Charandas Chor remains Habib Tanvir’s best-known play, and has been performed literally hundreds of times by his world-renowned Naya Theatre troupe all over India and in several countries across the world. It was made into a film by Shyam Benegal, with Smita Patil in the lead, in 1975, and was the first Indian play to win the prestigious Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Theatre Festival in 1982. It then did a successful run on the London stage.

We demand that the Chhattisgarh government immediately revoke this absurd ban.

me pomes they are of no import
they aren't the deep, reflective sort
but give them this: they're very short
okay?

Ev'ry dogg'rel must have its day
Alas, your bard's mere mortal clay
Rhyme-a-day plans gang aft agley
Ah well.