No one wants to read metered poetry
anymore, so stop it while you’re ahead!
Walt Whitman killed that stuff a century
and a half ago! Metric verse is dead!
We gave a pass to James Ingram Merrill
because he was so tortured (and so rich)!
You weave your verses at your own peril!
Your sonnets are corny, cliché and kitsch!
Why don’t you rap instead? Or do slam stuff?
We think you should just stick to what you know.
We know that writing prose “pomes” is too tough!
We won’t even bring up the Oulipo!
So just let these “Urban Sonnets” die hard!
Affirmed Action got you into Harvard!