Poetry Parody

How and Why I Write Poetry Parodies

It’s easy, fun, and I learn stuff! And you can, too.

I didn’t start out planning to write parodies of famous classic poems. But then again, I didn’t start out planning to write humor and satire, either.

But Susan Brearley’s article, The Post that Tests the Rest, written by her cat right when Medium switched from paying by claps to paying by reading time, hooked me.

In the post, her cat pressed computer keys creating a long thread of gobbledygook. This made me scroll and scroll to get to the English translation, LMAO, and making it feel like a 14-minute read.

Not to mention, the picture of a fat cat wearing glasses on his back with the keyboard across his middle. I was smitten.

After I changed my wet pants, my next thought was, let me try that. I just happened to flash on a friend claiming the practice of saying no is known in her circles as Noga. I grabbed the idea and twisted it into a pretzel.

Of course, just while I got some serious claps happenin’, they had already changed the payment game. So my highest clapper is so-so on money earned. It figures.

I cut my teeth on Shakespeare.

The poem parody thing was another stumbling discovery. I was in the car at Christmas, driving past a Christmas tree lot. I found myself wondering if my roommate would be willing to put up her artificial tree this year or if I would be SOL — shit out of luck. It can be a PITA to put up.

That’s when I flashed on the phrase, to tree or not to tree. Once home, I copied ole Will’s original Soliloquy, To Be or Not To Be, and wrote each one of my lines above one of his. That helped me get the rhythm and the sentence structure, as well as the punctuation.

I literally counted syllables on my fingers, so my lines matched his. I Ieft many of his key words in my version for the humor of recognition — within a very different subject.

So, for example, the beginning of the original:

To be, or not to be, that is the question Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take Arms against a Sea of troubles, And by opposing end them: to die, to sleep; No more; and by a sleep, to say we end The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks That Flesh is heir to? ’Tis a consummation

Became:

To tree, or not to tree, that is the question Whether’ tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of hearing Bah Humbug! Or to take arms against a sea of tangled lights And by untangling, hang them, string them forthwith, Taking care to replace any bogus bulbs For if we don’t, none of them shall light up — Which would be our undoing:’ tis a shame.

Like my virgin MuddyUm post, that first one has done the best. But I had high hopes every time I did a new take. To date, I have ten, including: To Tree or Not to Tree, To Mask or Not to Mask, To Niche or Not to Niche, and To Mute or not to Mute.*

An idea is not born, it’s stolen.

During August, I did daily blogging all on one topic challenge. Meanwhile, MuddyUm had its contest running, too, and I wanted to be in the running.

So when I saw Bob James’ parody, Robert Frost’s First Draft, Eureka! I could transfer the skill from Shakespeare to more contemporary well-known poems.

I took my first stab with Invictus, as I love its sound and rhythm. The movie with the same name shows how the poem inspired both Nelson Mandela during 27 years in prison and the Springbok rugby team captain in post-apartheid South Africa.

I copied and pasted Invictus in a new story, reading it out loud several times. It was as if there was a new poem emerging from the classic. But keeping with Bob’s angle, this is an earlier, if not first draft.

Learning to devolve.

An earlier draft does not have to be anywhere nearly as good as the final version, right? It can devolve! The game is to make the so-called first draft as different and as clunky as possible, while still recognizable as the famous poem. And if it can tell a similar or its own story, all the better.

So the original Invictus:

Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul.

devolved into my Convict Us:

Out of the night that troubles me, Black as the Pit from yonder blackout, I curse whatever gods may laugh at me And down another glass o’ me favorite stout.

Like Bob, I added a note at the bottom, in the character of the original poet, by way of explanation. That became its own sort of game as well.

Getting the rhythm right.

I would read the original out loud so I could hear it with my own ears. This helped me embody it while I wrote.

I learned something about poetic rhythm. It’s not just the right number of syllables. You have to have the same beat or meter for it to sound right. That means some words with the same number of syllables still won’t work because the accent is on the wrong syllable.

This is why the Dr. Seuss parody was the hardest of all. Writing Oh, the Pieces You’ll Submit Without Getting a Hit took three times as long as the Shakespeare ones — about three hours. All because of the damn rhythm.

It was worth it, though. Lots of views, reads, claps, but more important, lots and lots of laughs.

Not all the parodies are funny per se. Oh Caftan, My Caftan seems to be, with the image of Walt walking the swanky or funky sidewalks of his NYC or D.C. in a long flowing red gown.

But for the more serious ones like Meth be Not Proud or We Hide the Flask, the game becomes recognizing the threads of the original in the new version. And that’s usually good for a clap or two.

In the meantime, this is a fun way to earn my MFA in poetry sans student loan debt. I only hope Susan will sign off on my equivalency units.

P.S. These are fun to read out loud at open mics, which now happen in these parts on Zoom. If anyone’s interested, I can hook you up as geography is no longer a barrier. If you have a poem you think would make a good parody and you don’t care to do it yourself, pass it along!

Marilyn Flower is a sacred fool who writes fiction, poetry, and blogs, inspired by the practice of SoulCollage®. Her books: Developing Characters: Fun Ways to Cast Your Fiction, Creative Blogging, Bucket Listers. Follow her Sacred Foolishness or SoulCollage® for Writers, and Stay in touch!