English Class - "Five Ways" Poem

My English teacher is great. Some students disagree with me and say that he talks too much, but I like it because we can discuss things aloud as we read them, and not just writing journals at the end of each chapter, where the only person who ever reads them is the teacher, and you can't learn from what your classmates have to say. Besides, I feel like I can express my thoughts better orally than in writing sometimes, and while reading a book is one of those times.

The other thing is that instead of writing our assignments and book responses on paper and handing them in to the teacher, we post them on a blog. The advantages to this fall along the same line as the in-class discussions: other students can read your work and critique it, and you can learn from other students' writing.

Anyway, I'm going to show you a poem I wrote for English class. The assignment was to choose a poem from a book he gave us and write a pastiche, a copy of another artist's style, based on the poem. Here is the original poem, followed by my own pastiche:

Five Ways to Kill a Man EDWIN BROCK

There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.

You can make him carry a plank of wood

to the top of a hill and nail him to it. To do this

properly you require a crowd of people

wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak

to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one

man to hammer the nails home.

Or you can take a length of steel,

shaped and chased in a traditional way,

and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.

But for this you need white horses,

English trees, men with bows and arrows,

at least two flags, a prince, and a

castle to hold your banquet in.

Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind

allows, blow gas at him. But then you need

a mile of mud sliced through with ditches,

not to mention black boots, bomb craters,

more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs,

and some round hats made of steel.

In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly

miles above your victim and dispose of him by

pressing one small switch. All you then

require is an ocean to separate you, two

systems of government, a nation’s scientists,

several factories, a psychopath, and

land that no-one needs for several years.

These are, as I began, cumbersome ways

to kill a man. Simpler, direct, and much more neat

is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle

of the twentieth century, and leave him there.

Five Ways to Fail in Life EMMA

There are many cumbersome ways to fail in life.

You could claim inheritance to the throne

of an empire, and wreck the whole place.

You would require numerous mistresses, a case of

megalomania, a controlling mother, a way to kill

said mother, and an utter lack of talent in the

arts, which you would deny.

With no claim to a throne by birthright, you

could declare dictatorship anyway. You would

be self-conscious about your lack of height, not to mention

being at war with everyone at once, invading

Russia in the dead of winter, and refusing to

quit while you are ahead.

When destroying a nation is out of your reach, you can

lead a large army to their deaths instead. For this

you should have big and fluffy sideburns, a

vital battle, a gigantic crater, 3793 troops to

sacrifice, and a reputation to shatter.

Another way to fail is by becoming a famous

mobster. This would require one giant crime

organization, Thompson sub-machine guns, lots of

money with nothing to show for it, a prison

sentence to Alcatraz, and a case of syphilis.

These are, as I began, cumbersome ways

to fail in life. Simpler, direct, and much more neat

is to sit in the middle of a sea of

opportunities, yet do nothing.

I actually had to do a bit of research for this poem, but I enjoyed it. The people I referred to in my poem are real historical figures, and as an added bonus I'll let you guess who they are. (Preferably specify which stanza applies to them.) The only people who aren't allowed to answer are my dad and my brother, because they helped me to choose historical figures and therefore already know who all the people are.