Kitten Poetry
Laurel and I bought a kitten named Anakin. (More information about him can be found on his home page) He's wonderful, and gets along beautifully with my 12 year old cat, Basho, but he also is a major computer geek. Whenever one of us is typing on the computer or the laptop, Anakin will do his best to press keys, or to bat at moving objects on the screen. Many an important window has been shut down due to Anakin's meddling.
I've taken to keeping a Microsoft Word window open at all times, so that when he gets in a typing mood, I can switch to it. Occasionally, he will type out a poem, usually in the style of e.e.cummings. The following poems were titled by me, and I added some carriage returns on the first, but otherwise they were entirely generated by his paws on the keyboard with no help.
Anakin is clearly maturing as a poet. Note how the first poem, while deepingly evocative in its childlike use of hyperbole, is still somewhat rough and raw. The second, while still retaining this youthful untamedness, also displays a maturing mischeviousness in its surprise ending, the "No" contradicting the impression of innocent certainty that we had been led to expect. The third shows a growing sophistication that forces the reader to paint his or her own disturbing picture at its end... an unwilling co-conspirator in the poems quite sinister subtextual overtones.
"How much I love Laurel" -By Anakin
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"The value of n" -ByAnakin
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"What I have that Basho doesn't" -By Anakin
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Back to Anakin's Home Page
DougCode
6/2000: qcor bi lk pfm gij! (qk pfnk op csfm gie!) nc
nc nc! -pbkyk tcnbom