Who doesn't enjoy parodies of famous poems? I have no particular fondness for poetry, truth be told, but I'm a sucker for parodies thereof.
Today, Becky riffs on Poe's "The Raven" in her Ode to a Menstrual Cramp, complete with a shout-out to old belted Kotex.
If that whets your appetite for more spoofing of canonical literature, check out Francis Heaney's Holy Tango of Literature ("Holy Tango" is an anagram of "anthology"). It makes a fun $10 gift for those friends or relatives who were English majors or enjoy wordplay. In his book, Francis parodies numerous poems and plays by anagramming the author's name and riffing on that anagram as the subject of his poem. T. S. Eliot becomes "Toilets," for example, and the meter mimics that of "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." (I think. Am too lazy to double-check at the moment.) Gwendolyn Brooks becomes "We Long, Bony Dorks," a poem about math dorks.
You can read the entire book for free at Francis's website, but you miss out on the cartoon illustrations. And if you printed the whole thing out and gave it as a gift, you'd rightly be called a cheapskate by the recipient.
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2 comments:
I read your first line and I thought, "weird, that's what I did today!"
It's good to read a whole post.
Love the menstrual parody of Poe. Especially since I am currently memorizing "The Raven" in preparation for the poetry class I'm teaching next semester. Maybe when I'm done I'll memorize Becky's version and really freak the kids out.
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