{"id":4224,"date":"2010-04-05T21:03:03","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T04:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.candlelightstories.com\/?p=4224"},"modified":"2010-04-05T21:03:04","modified_gmt":"2010-04-06T04:03:04","slug":"im-gonna-beat-you-with-my-poem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/candlelightstories.com\/Blog\/2010\/04\/05\/im-gonna-beat-you-with-my-poem\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m Gonna Beat You With My Poem"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I’m about to show you why I have so few friends.\u00a0 It’s because I don’t put up with ‘team mentality.’\u00a0 Hey kids, come over here and join my poetry team!\u00a0 Yeah dudes!\u00a0 Get with it!\u00a0 Get hip to my dang poetry team, bro!\u00a0 We could win!\u00a0 We could take the whole prize, sista!\u00a0 Yeah, baaaaaaby!<\/p>\n

I’m the kid eating the Twinkies, picking my nose, twirling the Frisbee on my finger and looking at you like you’ve got a gun.\u00a0 That’s me.\u00a0 You scare me, poetry dude.<\/p>\n

For some reason, in our young national culture, we enjoy teaching our children to compete via talent shows of all stripes.\u00a0 Since it’s National Poetry Month, the Louder Than a Bomb<\/em><\/a> demo video caught my somewhat jaundiced eye.\u00a0 I put up with it all the way through even though it made me squirm.\u00a0 Poetry as in your face talent competition doesn’t fit my world view.<\/p>\n

Right away the video starts out with total obnoxiousness.\u00a0 The guy says, ‘We de-emphasize the competition, but you want<\/em> to win!’\u00a0 A-hole.\u00a0 What an idiot.\u00a0 Kids, remember, always run from a guy that says something like that.\u00a0 Run and don’t look back.<\/p>\n

I feel the same way about film festivals, American Idol, Dancing with the Stars and the Academy Awards.\u00a0 I even feel the same way about online writing contests, though I’ve hosted them myself.\u00a0 They are intended to boost traffic on a web site.\u00a0 They serve no real purpose and offer no true value at all.\u00a0 Contests are held to make mediocrities feel like they can hand out prizes.\u00a0 A kid who is going to be a poet is going to leave by the back door every time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m about to show you why I have so few friends.\u00a0 It’s because I don’t put up with ‘team mentality.’\u00a0 Hey kids, come over here and join my poetry team!\u00a0 Yeah dudes!\u00a0 Get with it!\u00a0 Get hip to my dang poetry team, bro!\u00a0 We could win!\u00a0 We could take the whole prize, sista!\u00a0 Yeah, baaaaaaby! […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[68,2501],"class_list":["post-4224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","tag-contest","tag-poetry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t