Just to get everyone accustomed to how this will work, I will explain process. I will put up a poem here, and then provide a few sentences describing what I feel about the poem and what brought me to write it. First up is my poem Videotape.
Videotape
Recall a time when the words face and book were separate from one another. Remember a time when my and space actually had a space between them. Remember when Twitter was an onomatopoeia for a birdcall. Find the time when AIM meant to adjust position and trajectory for the sole purpose of sinking an arrow or other projectile into the flesh of the target. Do you recall when a Yahoo was a stupid person, when a Googol was an insanely large number, and when a Dogpile was a pile of dogs? When Wiki sounded like a Hawaiian word, not a last minute research site? When tube was a substitute for a pipe, and there’s obviously no such thing as a YouPipe. Remember when slang was a bad type of putting sling in the past, when everything single thing you ever said wasn’t hashed over in every which way and posted somewhere for you to regret it? Remember when you actually had to pass notes in class, and now you just need notes to pass your class? When a cell phone was something an inmate in prison would use while he’s in his one hundred or so square feet of living space, and he had to use the cell’s phone to call a friend, one time a day. Remember when a disc was a synonym for a Frisbee, and not just something you plug and played? Do you remember when a pirate was someone on the high seas, not someone in the lower parts of their house scraping pickings of other’s hard earned money off the lowest websites of the internet? Most of all, can you remember when video and tape came together in the same word, not just something that takes too long to buffer, a problem fixed with scotch, masking, or duct varieties? The little black box you placed in the perfect fitting slot to watch a favorite TV show? A reflection of memories. A view of the past. Makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you think. Rewound with a funny sound, but go back in time and remember what you have forgotten about yourself. Streaky lines of snow covering the screen. Carried in a black rectangular box six hours at a time, present all over the world and held close to the heart. Push PLAY and you see the chapters of my life, stories of my past, foreshadowing the future. Grainy sand screen to keep the picture in place. Nostalgia built up by the fact that you couldn’t see things from this angle before. A dying breed replaced by hard, impersonal, plastic disks to match the plastic people whose stories they tell, smaller and more compatible in the revolting “MODERN AGE.” Give me a videotape of the past because these can be changed, there is no “FINALIZE” function, like cutting a story off before it’s over, but rather, you can rewrite them to fit how you think your story goes. Awkward they may be, but they hold the stories of our past. Do not erase them, for the fear of losing most of our history is a price we can’t afford to pay.
Videotape was a poem that came out of my first set "Too Pretty for Common Conversation." This one was one of my favorites to perform right off the bat, and the aggressive nature in the first half of the poem generally led to a strong reception from the audiences. I came up with the idea to write Videotape originally after being inspired by a Radiohead song of the same name, and then put it into action when I thought of how stupid some of the domain names for websites are nowadays. This poem has been interesting because I have usually broken it into two parts to show the more common break between writing sessions, as this is the only poem I have ever written on separate days. However, when it came time to perform, the flow actually felt more natural from part II to part I, so I rearranged them accordingly. This one established my writing skill and remains a favorite of the ones I have shared.
Follow me on Twitter @KipperScorpion.
Videotape
Recall a time when the words face and book were separate from one another. Remember a time when my and space actually had a space between them. Remember when Twitter was an onomatopoeia for a birdcall. Find the time when AIM meant to adjust position and trajectory for the sole purpose of sinking an arrow or other projectile into the flesh of the target. Do you recall when a Yahoo was a stupid person, when a Googol was an insanely large number, and when a Dogpile was a pile of dogs? When Wiki sounded like a Hawaiian word, not a last minute research site? When tube was a substitute for a pipe, and there’s obviously no such thing as a YouPipe. Remember when slang was a bad type of putting sling in the past, when everything single thing you ever said wasn’t hashed over in every which way and posted somewhere for you to regret it? Remember when you actually had to pass notes in class, and now you just need notes to pass your class? When a cell phone was something an inmate in prison would use while he’s in his one hundred or so square feet of living space, and he had to use the cell’s phone to call a friend, one time a day. Remember when a disc was a synonym for a Frisbee, and not just something you plug and played? Do you remember when a pirate was someone on the high seas, not someone in the lower parts of their house scraping pickings of other’s hard earned money off the lowest websites of the internet? Most of all, can you remember when video and tape came together in the same word, not just something that takes too long to buffer, a problem fixed with scotch, masking, or duct varieties? The little black box you placed in the perfect fitting slot to watch a favorite TV show? A reflection of memories. A view of the past. Makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you think. Rewound with a funny sound, but go back in time and remember what you have forgotten about yourself. Streaky lines of snow covering the screen. Carried in a black rectangular box six hours at a time, present all over the world and held close to the heart. Push PLAY and you see the chapters of my life, stories of my past, foreshadowing the future. Grainy sand screen to keep the picture in place. Nostalgia built up by the fact that you couldn’t see things from this angle before. A dying breed replaced by hard, impersonal, plastic disks to match the plastic people whose stories they tell, smaller and more compatible in the revolting “MODERN AGE.” Give me a videotape of the past because these can be changed, there is no “FINALIZE” function, like cutting a story off before it’s over, but rather, you can rewrite them to fit how you think your story goes. Awkward they may be, but they hold the stories of our past. Do not erase them, for the fear of losing most of our history is a price we can’t afford to pay.
Videotape was a poem that came out of my first set "Too Pretty for Common Conversation." This one was one of my favorites to perform right off the bat, and the aggressive nature in the first half of the poem generally led to a strong reception from the audiences. I came up with the idea to write Videotape originally after being inspired by a Radiohead song of the same name, and then put it into action when I thought of how stupid some of the domain names for websites are nowadays. This poem has been interesting because I have usually broken it into two parts to show the more common break between writing sessions, as this is the only poem I have ever written on separate days. However, when it came time to perform, the flow actually felt more natural from part II to part I, so I rearranged them accordingly. This one established my writing skill and remains a favorite of the ones I have shared.
Follow me on Twitter @KipperScorpion.
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