Breaking News

[churinga]

Breaking News

YOUNG POET COMMITS SUICIDE

AFTER BEING REJECTED BY POETRY FORUM.

Malcolm McSquirt, from the island of Stlob first came to the public's attention when his poetry, wrapped in bubble-wrap, began drifting onto the shores of England and Wales.

Stlob Island, which is really a disused oil rig, has been occupied by Malcolm, who is 15, and by his 5 sisters and three mothers for several years now and already the family is a cause celebre amongst conservationists who see Stlob as one way of making good use of redundant technology.

Malcolm or as his online friends like to call him 'Squirter' is well known as a facebook poet and his poetry has delighted and baffled his many friends.

John Rillington-Place a well known supporter describes Squirter's poetry as a blend of the incomprehensible and the meaningless, reflecting thereby the deep existential angst felt by all Facebook users.

Bill 'Long John' Paltry also a fan of Squirter's work credited it with waking him from a self-induced coma that had, as he put it, 'lasted for I don't know how long' 'Long John' said that Squirter's three last poems on Facebook, a series based on Squirters love of cream cake and called,'Whipped', 'Firm Sponge' and the enigmatic 'Sog' were a high point in contemporary literature. Known also as the mirror writing poems, they remain an enigma to most but that doesn't stop 'Long John' from predicting that they will become the hallmark of a new renaissance in cryptographic poetry, the craze that is sweeping poetry circles from Smolensk to nearby villages, in Long John's words,'as we speak'.

Sadly Squirter was found last Wednesday drowned in a large three-tiered cream cake which he had specially delivered by speed boat from an as yet unknown cakery. His addiction to cream cake was well known and many felt it was part of his charisma. His second mother, Mabs had thought it was a celebratory cake for all to share, little did she know that Squirter's latest series of poems had been rejected by the prestigious poetry forum Erratikseer, well known for its flippant but deadly and serious approach to the limerick, the Nelly Villa and other abstruse forms of poetic licence.

Squirter, a new member of Erratikbeer, posted his Shotgun Series of poems hoping for the sort of praise he was used to in the little seaside villagers where his bubble-wrap poems had been so well received. The Shotgun Poems, 16 in all, were cleverly posted separately, one in each section of Erraticseer's labyrinthine website.

Ingenious for their complete lack of form, the poems were, according to John Rillington-Place, created by using what Squirter called the bingo technique, the result being a series of fascinating statements such as 'Nine and nine, what's yours is mine' followed by an equally remarkable rejoinder such as 'If it's not bent, it wont be sent'. Many members of Erraticseer where struck by the similarity of Squirters work to that famous martyr to poetry, Silverie Flapp, and her 'Cowbell' poems which explored the link between moonshine and the self-defrosting fridge.

But other members of Erraticseer were appalled by the facile plagiarism of Squirter, using as he did, bingo hall parlance without acknowledgement.

A spokesman for Erratikbeer, Runt Bumbleton Sill, known affectionately to all his Youtube fans as 'Oik' issued a statement today that said in part. 'Malcolm McSquirt had clearly not read the rules of Erraticbeer regarding posting and posts,... "paragraph C, section 17, on page 4 of the 'guide for the perplexed', which every new member of Erraticbeer is asked to read, clearly states that all members must critique 17.735 poems by other members before posting one of their own. Clearly Malcolm McSquirt ignored this rule and posted his shotgun poems having only commented on 9.76 poems by our esteemed members.

His comments ranged from one word expletives such as 'clap' to long ramblings which were put down to Squirter's heavy consumption of icing sugar and in the words of one Erratkbeer member 'were difficult to read in any language'.

'We can't allow this behaviour to exist on our forum. It is the thin edge of the cream cake' 'Oik' jokingly added.

A coronial inquiry into Squirter's death will take place as soon as a police boat can locate the island of Stlob and bring the body ashore.

[NotQuiteSure]

.
Hi Ross,
lot to like here, but you need a sub editor to whip it into shape.
It's a bit too rambling for a newspaper story and the ending
undercuts everything. How can it be a adjudged a suicide
in the absence of any (police) investigation. There's no
mention of a note. And if the cake can get to the island
why can't the cops? Also, surely 'Mabs' knew which 'cakery'
she bought the cake from? Hardly rigorous journalism.

The names aren't clever enough - why not Roger Paltry? -
(though I liked 'Rillington-Place) or consistent throughout.

If its focus is the poetry/forums, then why not re-frame it as a
retrospective piece? That way you could drop the investigations,
the mothers and cut the cake elements and maintain a clearer
focus.

Jasper Fforde fan?

Regards, Not.




.

[churinga]

Hi Not, thanks for commenting. I realize now the piece is not clear enough, the 'breaking news' was meant to be the first line as a headline, the rest is my commentary, not specifically written as a newspaper story, I suppose if anything it could be a background piece. But I didn't think that far with it.

I will put the 'Breaking news' in caps and larger font to make the idea clearer.

cheers

Ross

[NotQuiteSure]

.
Hi Ross

the 'breaking news' was meant to be the first line as a headline, the rest is my commentary

I think that’s the problem. It sets up the ‘newspaper article’ interpretation, not the
‘commentary’ one you intend. Further, the ‘death’ sections don’t sit that well with the
(funnier) poetry/forum elements, unless it is a piece of investigative reporting (if a
‘commentary’ then what are they a comment on?)

Regards, Not.

.

[churinga]

Hi Not
You seem to have thought a lot more about this piece than I have. The suicide angle is a bit heavy, but it could happen, people have committed suicide over fb bullying.
Thanks for your interest.

cheers

Ross

[Harbal]

That's a very funny piece of writing, churinga, and very much appealed to my sense of humour. As someone mentioned, it could be polished up a bit, but I don't think it was any less funny for that.

[Poet]

I agree it's all just rambling and no bite, I think you may have to revise this.