Timothy McSweeney's Header Image

The deadline for the 2008 Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award, a $2,500 grant given to a woman writer of 32 years or younger, is this Thursday, May 15. For more information, click here.

- - - -

Flown the Parrots
of Averse Writing.

BY HEIDI LYNN STAPLES

- - - -

 I really don't know why anyone writes poems
 when so many other things are ripe to do
 other than stare and task, What's this mean?
 or sit round and mot the good ol' moon new—
 No, there are bigger beds to try, flesh to make
 love to, writing poems just makes no sense

 to me. I think poets should get spun sense
 and stop making of a projecting line say, poems
 when, as I said plain leap before, you could make
 love to some pun. If you felt like doing the do
 that this. It helps if you brainwave some fun new.
 (My honey would drink that lapse statement mean.)

 I don't mean it mean, though. I merely mean
 that at the same ding-a-ling-ling, you can't sense
 get again the same buffet as you can kin fits new.
 The same unsame way. Now, about poems.
 Yeah. I think the poem will go the way of the voodoo
 word, the wild orangutan, those who make

 fire with rocks. Itch this bind of sad. Why do we make
 of all that big abundance around us something mean?
 I mean, really, don't we have anything better to do?
 Some say we've been gripping the beauty's dawn since
 the beginning of tome and writing a prick poems
 that cock about hit and make hubris seem like a new

 way to ware your lair. Human error is nut springs anew
 and just look at the abysmal cakes we continue to make—
 the invasions, the bombings, the really bad poems.
 Some say the ends gesticulate the means
 for the promotion of humming frog's egress. Nonsense.
 When people say that, I think you combusting kiddo

 me. That's a funneled ninny world really. Do
 you shadowshow what I mean? Click clack kitty anew,
 m-e. What abyss an m? Am I waking miscellany sense?
 Halcyon you make sense? Isn't admit tense that makes
 you? Do you believe in natal knot you means?
 You won't find the ants swearing to that in your poems.

 I'm getting the incensed you dock dimply do
 got get the poem I'm Mighty-Make. O flight knew
 you'd make this mean mort din ditty means to mean. 

 

MORE SESTINAS

 

- - - -

MAIN PAGE   |   ARCHIVES

 

Memories of Amanda Davis

 


Red dot denotes content that is new today.

Black dot denotes newish content.

McSWEENEY'S STORE

SUBSCRIBE TO:
McSWEENEY'S
THE BELIEVER
WHOLPHIN

FUTURE McSWEENEY'S BOOKS

THE AMANDA DAVIS HIGHWIRE FICTION AWARD

INVITE A McSWEENEY'S AUTHOR TO SPEAK IN YOUR TOWN OR COLLEGE

McSWEENEY'S MONTHLY MAILING LIST

McSWEENEY'S-RELATED EVENTS AND VARIOUS TOUR DATES

ORDER INQUIRIES AND ADDRESS CHANGES

SUBMISSION GUIDELINES:
FOR BOOKS
FOR THE QUARTERLY
FOR THE WEBSITE
FOR WHOLPHIN

McSWEENEY'S INTERNSHIPS

CONTACT US

- - - -

LETTERS TO McSWEENEY'S

LISTS

McSWEENEY'S PREDICTS

McSWEENEY'S RECOMMENDS

NEW WHOLPHIN FILM

DAN LIEBERT, VERBAL CARTOONIST

JOKES BY BRIAN BEATTY

REVIEWS OF NEW FOOD

DISPATCHES FROM MOSCOW

SO YOU WANT TO BE PRESIDENT?

DISPATCHES FROM THE ANACOSTIA

THE WINNER'S CIRCLE WITH ERIC FEEZELL

BEN GREENMAN'S FAKE CELEBRITY MUSICALS

DISPATCHES FROM A HUMANITARIAN JOURNALIST

DISPATCHES FROM IRAQ

SHORT IMAGINED MONOLOGUES

PHILIP GRAHAM SPENDS A YEAR IN LISBON

STAINED TEETH: A COLUMN ABOUT WINE

DISPATCHES FROM THE NAPOLEONIC WARS AT THE MET

KEVIN DOLGIN TELLS YOU ABOUT PLACES YOU SHOULD GO IN EUROPE

LAWRENCE WESCHLER'S EVERYTHING THAT RISES: A BOOK OF CONVERGENCES

THE CONVERGENCES CONTEST

ABOUT WHAT IS THE WHAT

ABOUT BOWL OF CHERRIES

ABOUT COMEDY BY THE NUMBERS

ABOUT JOHN BRANDON'S ARKANSAS

LETTERS FROM AN EARTH BALL TO, OR CONCERNING, SEAN HANNITY

DISPATCHES FROM ADJUNCT FACULTY AT A LARGE STATE UNIVERSITY

ADVICE FROM A PERSON WITH A BACHELOR'S DEGREE IN PSYCHOLOGY

DISPATCHES FROM THE NBA ENTERTAINMENT LEAGUE

JOHN MOE'S POP-SONG CORRESPONDENCES

B.R. COHEN'S ANNALS OF SCIENCE

INTERVIEWS WITH PEOPLE WHO HAVE INTERESTING OR UNUSUAL JOBS

OPEN LETTERS TO PEOPLE OR ENTITIES WHO ARE UNLIKELY TO RESPOND

DISPATCHES FROM A PUBLIC LIBRARIAN

MICHAEL IAN BLACK IS A VERY FAMOUS CELEBRITY

DISPATCHES FROM ROY KESEY, AN AMERICAN GUY MARRIED TO
A PERUVIAN DIPLOMAT LIVING IN CHINA


STEPHEN ELLIOTT'S POKER REPORT

- - - -

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL