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A Minute with Mike: An Ode to Bad Poetry

Oh, Bad Poetry, 

Why are you written?

Why are you listened to? 

Perhaps the audience is held captive out of perceived rudeness at a coffee house or locked in 

a car barreling down the highway with the radio just out of reach. Wink wink nod nod.

Why are you scribbled then recited?

Are we afraid of silence? 

Bad Poetry, do you help us cover long, uncomfortable dead air?

(long silence with Garrison Kellor-esque nose breathing)

An everlasting relentless circle of rebirth and 

resurrection and recycling of bad, not-good sentences, thoughtless intent, implausible metaphors and 

just plain lousy writing...

In fact, somewhere at this very moment, people are participating in the magically mundane 

ritual of bad poetry.

And with broadcast towers, satellites and compressed 1's and 0's ... you, Bad Poetry shall 

soar into the darkest depths of the universe for all eternity.

And the man from Nantucket smiles.

(tepid applause, audience feigns interest)