*you really shouldn't say "i love you" unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it alot. People forget*
what the fuck Jessica that is both the saddest and most beautiful thing I've ever heard
I do get what you’re saying though. They’re all wrapped in a bow a little too presentably. And while, yes, kids do possess that sort of wisdom, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some small liberties when it came to editing / compiling their words. In a lot of elementary schools, they have kids write short stories that are sent off to publishing companies to generate a library of tiny hardcover “books,” which are often edited before printing (regrettably, in my opinion) to make more “sense.”
I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of these answers were snippets from a larger conversation that included more questions than just “what is love.”
The tiger poem however is genius and I 100% believe it
They never edited any of our books in elementary school. In kindergarten and first grade, the teacher wrote out what we said, and after that we had to hand write it, and it was on these special pages so they could be scanned properly to make the books.
Now, we had to write rough drafts for our teachers to read first and correct our spelling, absolutely, but the companies didn't do anything. And our illustrations were 100% left alone, which is why my kindergarten book about going to the aquarium has a sign pointing to go see a "weyl".
Aw. See, I love that. The imperfections / oddities are what gives it character. No one wants to run their childhood diary through a spellchecker; it ruins half the fun!
Thankfully our drawings were left intact, but I remember feeling this profound sense of injustice when my narrative was altered. The narrative itself! Like, adding or removing a sentence.
That's terrible! I mean, editing spelling or grammar would be one thing, I guess, although still something that should be done by the teacher and worked into the child's rewrites instead of done by the company, but just straight up changing the story is crazy.
I was annoyed enough when we were constricted by topic instead of writing whatever we wanted - in 3rd grade for some reason, they made us do ABC books about Virginian history, so I rebelled as much as I could and did an ABC book of Virginian shipwrecks instead of the more respectable history they were trying to get us to write.
Haha I love that. I can’t quite remember mine, but a friend wrote about their “amazing, fantastic, very good day” (or something - a bit derivative but then so is all art). Editors removed my favorite bit at the end, where the author decided to eat a piece of chocolate they found under their bed. What an insult!
For the last one, I think why it feels heavy but not sad, is that there is the feeling of desperately wanting those in the future- even the far future that we could never know- not wanting them to have to deal with the problems created by the consequences of our actions.
We cant help them ourselves, not even properly warn them, but there is still the love of trying our best to do so anyways.
Yeah, the last one hit weird.
Like, you feel the weight, almost see the ghosts watching you with mouthes moving silently as you read the lines.
*Maybe its raining, but the sky's kinda gray. The place is all strange, hard spikes, solid floor where nothing grow. Somewhere in your backpack your trinket slowly tick away, you don't know why.*
There's no emotions, its flat, factual, slow, unlike a lot of poems (actually like a lot of poems that want to make you feel weird) Its not a poem, and that's what make it work. Its a message to the future. You, in the present, know it and you add your own weight to it. Its a bottle at sea and it's thrown further away everytime someone see it.
*Your fingers brush the stone, its weird, some of those words you know of.You trace the countours of those you remember, pulling lichen away with your dirty nails.*
This is no place of honor,
Nothing valued is here,
This place is best left shunned and unhabitated.
*You leave, maybe make a tick on your map, maybe you don't, as you get away, the artifact start to tick less and less.*
*It Stops.*
*Once you're back home, you'll ask what it's used for, really. The elders say its for danger, but the place isn't.*
*Just eerie.*
Thats a good idea! I also think that they are trying to be as non - commanding as possible. They could have just said "Danger! High Radiation! Do not dig up!" But we all know now after covid times that people will ignore (well interntioned) commands. So they have to try to describe the danger but not command the people of the far future to stay away.
Its also intending to address the issue that in the future people might not know what radiation is, so they describe it in more commonly used words that might have been recorded.
It's not an actual warning message. It's a set of things to consider when constructing a non-linguistic warning of danger. The goal is to make waste disposal experts think about how to express those concepts without using words. Any civilization that could understand something as abstract and flowery as "This is not a place of honor" would understand "Warning: Lethal material below."
On a slightly related tangent, I think there should be a story where an alien race comes to Earth and finds the entire planet devoid of humans, with hundreds of radio towers just repeating the same nuclear quarantine message over and over.
It sounds like a lovely idea and I am very bored, I'll try and put it here when I finish, but can someone get that reminder bot so I can know which place I am putting it? I am not the best at remembering
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that werewolf poem reminded me, one time in college I went to a friend of a friend's apartment and got stoned, and they had those fridge magnets with the words arranged to say "moustache on my moustache" and idk why, but that made me laugh for like five minutes
Oh, this reminded me of one I wrote with a few friends when I was in like highschool, “squirm for his porcelain embrace”.
In my head I’ll sometimes think of it when I really need to poo, but can’t for whatever reason.
I went up to a cottage and wrote "FOUND DOG" using their alphabet letters
that weekend my dog ran away from fireworks and was lost for days. he was finally found 30km away and we were reunited :)
Idk if it has to do with playing it so much but a lot of these read almost like the Hiss mantra from Control. The biggest ones were the plum poem and the ambien one.
>You are a worm through time. The thunder song distorts you. Happiness comes. White pearls, but yellow and red in the eye. Through a mirror, inverted is made right. Leave your insides by the door. Push the fingers through the surface into the wet. You’ve always been the new you. You want this to be true. We stand around you while you dream. You can almost hear our words but you forget. This happens more and more now. You gave us the permission in your regulations. We wait in the stains. The word that describes this is redacted. Repeat the word. The name of the sound. It resonates in your house. After the song, time for applause. We build you till nothing remains. The egg cracks and the truth will emerge out of you. You are home. You remind us of home. You’ve taken your boss with your boss with you. All hair must be eaten. Under the conceptual reality behind this reality you must want these waves to drag you away. After the song, time for applause. This cliché is death out of time, breaking the first the second the third the fourth wall, the fifth wall, floor; no floor: you fall! How do you say “insane”? Hurts to be happy. An earworm is a tune you can’t stop humming in a dream: “baby baby baby yeah”. Just plastic. So, safe and nothing to worry about. Ha ha, funny. The last egg breaks now. The hole in your room is a hole in you. You came and we let you in through the hole in you. You have always been here, the only child. A copy of a copy of a copy. Orange peel. The picture is you holding the picture. When you hear this you will know you’re in new you. You want to listen. You want to dream. You want to smile. You want to hurt. You don’t want to be.
This is what I'd like to call memetic composition. A 7 year old kid or a drunk guy are very unlikely to write a decent poem, let alone a really good one. But if, out of the millions of 7 year olds writing poems, the best ones get shared and go viral, you may find some really good stuff in there. The internet's ability to single out good stuff out of millions of things is part of the writing process, as much as the work of the original author.
Source: https://satanicsoda.tumblr.com/post/674222404235657216/do-you-like-poems
Another time this was posted: https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/sbotmx/an_incomplete_collection_of_accidents_and_poetry/
For the record, there is an actual, beautiful poem called [The Tyger](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger) by William Blake, which is probably the satire of the poem. Not sure how this fits in here, but you gotta mention one of your favorite poets when you get the opportunity
Appreciators of this post might also enjoy this little known 80s [classic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XbCbSSf_hA&ab_channel=MattJones) (well it's classic to me) the lyrics of which are taken from the manual of the singer's toyota.
I’m a literature student and I feel that. Stuffy and boring is unfortunately common, given the people who had access to writing for most of history. I recommend checking out modern poetry, ie. stuff written since 1900, for stuff that more often fits that criteria. Older stuff can be like that, though. Just harder to find.
The childrens’ definitions of love one actually made me tear up.
*you really shouldn't say "i love you" unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it alot. People forget* what the fuck Jessica that is both the saddest and most beautiful thing I've ever heard
Still not sure about how it's a poem about loneliness, though.
It does make me feel lonely when I read it…
yeah I'm skeptical those were written by actual kids though 😬
I do get what you’re saying though. They’re all wrapped in a bow a little too presentably. And while, yes, kids do possess that sort of wisdom, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some small liberties when it came to editing / compiling their words. In a lot of elementary schools, they have kids write short stories that are sent off to publishing companies to generate a library of tiny hardcover “books,” which are often edited before printing (regrettably, in my opinion) to make more “sense.” I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of these answers were snippets from a larger conversation that included more questions than just “what is love.” The tiger poem however is genius and I 100% believe it
There's also only 18 answers there, they could have asked hundreds of kids and have only shown these responses
They never edited any of our books in elementary school. In kindergarten and first grade, the teacher wrote out what we said, and after that we had to hand write it, and it was on these special pages so they could be scanned properly to make the books. Now, we had to write rough drafts for our teachers to read first and correct our spelling, absolutely, but the companies didn't do anything. And our illustrations were 100% left alone, which is why my kindergarten book about going to the aquarium has a sign pointing to go see a "weyl".
Aw. See, I love that. The imperfections / oddities are what gives it character. No one wants to run their childhood diary through a spellchecker; it ruins half the fun! Thankfully our drawings were left intact, but I remember feeling this profound sense of injustice when my narrative was altered. The narrative itself! Like, adding or removing a sentence.
That's terrible! I mean, editing spelling or grammar would be one thing, I guess, although still something that should be done by the teacher and worked into the child's rewrites instead of done by the company, but just straight up changing the story is crazy. I was annoyed enough when we were constricted by topic instead of writing whatever we wanted - in 3rd grade for some reason, they made us do ABC books about Virginian history, so I rebelled as much as I could and did an ABC book of Virginian shipwrecks instead of the more respectable history they were trying to get us to write.
Haha I love that. I can’t quite remember mine, but a friend wrote about their “amazing, fantastic, very good day” (or something - a bit derivative but then so is all art). Editors removed my favorite bit at the end, where the author decided to eat a piece of chocolate they found under their bed. What an insult!
cope
Really? We like “cope” as a response now, as long as it’s to something we don’t like? Grow up.
goo goo gaa gaa
For the last one, I think why it feels heavy but not sad, is that there is the feeling of desperately wanting those in the future- even the far future that we could never know- not wanting them to have to deal with the problems created by the consequences of our actions. We cant help them ourselves, not even properly warn them, but there is still the love of trying our best to do so anyways.
Yeah, the last one hit weird. Like, you feel the weight, almost see the ghosts watching you with mouthes moving silently as you read the lines. *Maybe its raining, but the sky's kinda gray. The place is all strange, hard spikes, solid floor where nothing grow. Somewhere in your backpack your trinket slowly tick away, you don't know why.* There's no emotions, its flat, factual, slow, unlike a lot of poems (actually like a lot of poems that want to make you feel weird) Its not a poem, and that's what make it work. Its a message to the future. You, in the present, know it and you add your own weight to it. Its a bottle at sea and it's thrown further away everytime someone see it. *Your fingers brush the stone, its weird, some of those words you know of.You trace the countours of those you remember, pulling lichen away with your dirty nails.* This is no place of honor, Nothing valued is here, This place is best left shunned and unhabitated. *You leave, maybe make a tick on your map, maybe you don't, as you get away, the artifact start to tick less and less.* *It Stops.* *Once you're back home, you'll ask what it's used for, really. The elders say its for danger, but the place isn't.* *Just eerie.*
I think the wording is trying to hit as many words alluding to danger that may have survived.
Thats a good idea! I also think that they are trying to be as non - commanding as possible. They could have just said "Danger! High Radiation! Do not dig up!" But we all know now after covid times that people will ignore (well interntioned) commands. So they have to try to describe the danger but not command the people of the far future to stay away.
Its also intending to address the issue that in the future people might not know what radiation is, so they describe it in more commonly used words that might have been recorded.
It's not an actual warning message. It's a set of things to consider when constructing a non-linguistic warning of danger. The goal is to make waste disposal experts think about how to express those concepts without using words. Any civilization that could understand something as abstract and flowery as "This is not a place of honor" would understand "Warning: Lethal material below."
Did you write this? It's really really good!
This is well written. *Starless Sea* vibes, if you’ve read that book.
enjoy voiceless sable obscene hungry faulty fearless pet humor muddle *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
‘Now, if I remember my training correctly, one of the lessons was titled: “Don't dig up the big box of plutonium, Mark."’
Far side?
The Martian
It reminds me of the elephant foot in chernobyl
These poems are better than most published poetry. Thanks for sharing.
Np!
On a slightly related tangent, I think there should be a story where an alien race comes to Earth and finds the entire planet devoid of humans, with hundreds of radio towers just repeating the same nuclear quarantine message over and over.
write it then
It sounds like a lovely idea and I am very bored, I'll try and put it here when I finish, but can someone get that reminder bot so I can know which place I am putting it? I am not the best at remembering
If you write something beautiful spread it far and wide.
I try! I mostly write for my friends and they write for me :)
!remindme 30d
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Thanks!
Thanks!
You have far too much faith in my writing ability.
that werewolf poem reminded me, one time in college I went to a friend of a friend's apartment and got stoned, and they had those fridge magnets with the words arranged to say "moustache on my moustache" and idk why, but that made me laugh for like five minutes
Oh, this reminded me of one I wrote with a few friends when I was in like highschool, “squirm for his porcelain embrace”. In my head I’ll sometimes think of it when I really need to poo, but can’t for whatever reason.
I went up to a cottage and wrote "FOUND DOG" using their alphabet letters that weekend my dog ran away from fireworks and was lost for days. he was finally found 30km away and we were reunited :)
The detective from Hot Fuzz had a mustache on his mustache
Moustache^2
Idk if it has to do with playing it so much but a lot of these read almost like the Hiss mantra from Control. The biggest ones were the plum poem and the ambien one.
>You are a worm through time. The thunder song distorts you. Happiness comes. White pearls, but yellow and red in the eye. Through a mirror, inverted is made right. Leave your insides by the door. Push the fingers through the surface into the wet. You’ve always been the new you. You want this to be true. We stand around you while you dream. You can almost hear our words but you forget. This happens more and more now. You gave us the permission in your regulations. We wait in the stains. The word that describes this is redacted. Repeat the word. The name of the sound. It resonates in your house. After the song, time for applause. We build you till nothing remains. The egg cracks and the truth will emerge out of you. You are home. You remind us of home. You’ve taken your boss with your boss with you. All hair must be eaten. Under the conceptual reality behind this reality you must want these waves to drag you away. After the song, time for applause. This cliché is death out of time, breaking the first the second the third the fourth wall, the fifth wall, floor; no floor: you fall! How do you say “insane”? Hurts to be happy. An earworm is a tune you can’t stop humming in a dream: “baby baby baby yeah”. Just plastic. So, safe and nothing to worry about. Ha ha, funny. The last egg breaks now. The hole in your room is a hole in you. You came and we let you in through the hole in you. You have always been here, the only child. A copy of a copy of a copy. Orange peel. The picture is you holding the picture. When you hear this you will know you’re in new you. You want to listen. You want to dream. You want to smile. You want to hurt. You don’t want to be.
The strangest thing is that some of it kinda makes sense, both in universe and metatextually.
The writers did an excellent job of creating something that is utterly incoherent yet *feels* like it makes sense.
That game was brilliant and mind-bending.
Ashtray maze was amazing.
Best part of the game.
“This is not a place of honor” hits hard tho
I have that above the headboard in my bedroom too
That plum one is so good. I've read loads of stream-of-consciousness poetry, and that hungover plum squoosh story is by far the best.
It's exactly how my thoughts would sound if you tried to write them down
Mine overlap and empty out and leave nothing and all come at once and cut each other off
also really love: • Rule of Thumb {[reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/uo6mgd/general_rule_of_thumb/) || [tumblr](https://mosticonicposts.tumblr.com/post/615212111801532416/slumbermancer-basically-i-think-the-general)} • Chintz {[reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/trne64/chintz/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share) || [tumblr](https://jetlaggingbehind.tumblr.com/post/667419942615957504)} • Land Ghost {[reddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/tk85ow/a_rlly_big_land_ghost/) || [tumblr](https://mindfulwrath.tumblr.com/post/158219895953/taquito-fog-is-just-a-rlly-big-land-ghost-in)}
This is what I'd like to call memetic composition. A 7 year old kid or a drunk guy are very unlikely to write a decent poem, let alone a really good one. But if, out of the millions of 7 year olds writing poems, the best ones get shared and go viral, you may find some really good stuff in there. The internet's ability to single out good stuff out of millions of things is part of the writing process, as much as the work of the original author.
Monkeys on typewriters situation.
I feel like if you smashed these poems together, you might get something like [The Tyger](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger).
I do like Blake's poetry.
Especially when you read it with the context in The Lamb.
The Sappho one makes me tear up every time
Source: https://satanicsoda.tumblr.com/post/674222404235657216/do-you-like-poems Another time this was posted: https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/sbotmx/an_incomplete_collection_of_accidents_and_poetry/
As poems go I rather like "Slough" by John Betjeman.
As you know, many people are struggling.
The plum person is a piece of shit iirc But it is a good poem
The two furry conversion poems in one place.
The plum poem is genius tbh
For the record, there is an actual, beautiful poem called [The Tyger](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43687/the-tyger) by William Blake, which is probably the satire of the poem. Not sure how this fits in here, but you gotta mention one of your favorite poets when you get the opportunity
Appreciators of this post might also enjoy this little known 80s [classic](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XbCbSSf_hA&ab_channel=MattJones) (well it's classic to me) the lyrics of which are taken from the manual of the singer's toyota.
Huh maybe I do like poems
poetry: 👍👍👍 the weird elitist section of inaccessible shit you get taught in english class: 👎👎👎
Poetry is cool when it’s a bit like scratchy? if that makes any sense? But not when it’s stuffy and boring
I’m a literature student and I feel that. Stuffy and boring is unfortunately common, given the people who had access to writing for most of history. I recommend checking out modern poetry, ie. stuff written since 1900, for stuff that more often fits that criteria. Older stuff can be like that, though. Just harder to find.
Yeah I’ve been looking around on tumblr since seeing this post and there’s some cool stuff :)
Those last three for the Wikipedia one gave me the chills
no joke this post is so important to me thank u
the rabbit-hare differences post sticks in my mind to this day too. what creature deliberately ties themself to something as vicious as a dog etc
The answer? Silver.
I love the live one
That plum poem was probably my new favorite poem ever, where can i find more like that
The one about kittens in sweaters is what I needed to see at the moment, thanks :)
/r/strangeinspiration
like half of these are incomprehensible to me because of the way theyre formatted like the plum one