I don’t like writing poetry.  I simply don’t — I feel as if prose is much more suited to the way I think.  This does not mean I dislike poetry, as I loves me some Milton and Yeats and Frost and and E.A. Robinson and E.L. Masters and Wendy Cope and so on and so forth.  I just don’t like writing the stuff — poetry rarely seems to afford me the opportunity to say what I need or want to say.

Given that, it is not impossible for me to write (really stupid) poetry.  Usually this ends up being part of a class assignment, and I do everything in my power to make the poem as obnoxious as possible for my professor.  For instance, I was just digging through my archives when I found the following beauty from my poetry class — we had to write a villanelle about any subject of our choosing, so naturally I decided to write mine about Batman and call it “Super-Villanelle.”

“Super-Villanelle”

There are few who venture to this height;
There are those who fall, or never rise.
Then there is me, and I am the night.

Now, without the luxury of light,
Those below can only fear surprise.
There are few who venture to this height.

It is in this darkness that I delight:
I slip through shadow, I hardly need my eyes.
And that is me, and I am the night.

I aid them, and they hate me still despite;
The papers print my name alongside lies.
There are few who venture to this height.

I feel the wind — for an instant I’m in flight,
Clouds like angels’ wings besmear the skies,
Then there is me, and I am the night.

To the meaning in your life hold tight;
It’s yours alone, and with you it dies.
There are few who venture to that height.
Then there is me, and I am the Knight.

Of course, if I wanted to be true to the pun of my title, I should have written it about the Joker.  If I you want to write about Batman or Superman you should use heroic couplets!

(Yes, I used that joke on my professor.  Yes, he almost threw a Norton Anthology of Poetry (Unabridged) at me for it.)