The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest

Chel Owens

Welcome, one and all, to the Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest, #29.

Some visitors may wonder, “What is terrible poetry?” Is it a good poem with a rotten subject? A potential masterpiece with a funny twist? Not really.

Way back at the beginning, I gave a basic outline. My aim is to capture the sort of every-line-rhyming poem one wrote in grade school, or a roses are red rip-off when first tormented by teenage love, or to fulfill a college assignment to create haiku based on syllables alone.

Got it? Here are the specifics for this week:

  1. The Topic is open! No, not a poem with the word “open,” but a masterpiece about any subject you feel inspired to expound upon.
  2. Just as the theme is whatever goes, the Length is also. I will warn entrants that the (sole) judge has about a 200-word attention span.
  3. Rhyming is also optional. Look at all the freedom you have!
  4. Above all, make it terrible! Make professional poets beat themselves over the head with their organic chai tea from recomposed cacao husks. Make English literature professors escape out their office windows and climb down their ivy leagues. Make your mother proud.
  5. …But keep things PG or cleaner if you can for the general audiences that read the blog.
  6. Also, please share the love. Tell your friends and followers. I think our regulars could use a bit of competition, and I always enjoy seeing new victims to the contest.

You have till 8:00 a.m. MST next Friday (June 14) to submit a poem.

If you want to be anonymous (for a week), use the form below.

Or, for a more social experience, include your poem or a link to it in the comments below that.

Have FUN!

 

frida-aguilar-estrada-397167-unsplash

Photo credit:
Frida Aguilar Estrada

45 thoughts on “The Weekly Terrible Poetry Contest”

  1. Hi Chelsea 🙂
    When I wrote this one recently, it wasn’t supposed to be terrible necessarily, but it was supposed to be funny. It’s not my greatest poem technically either, and I wrote it pretty quickly, so maybe that qualifies it to be terrible? We shall see. 🤨🙃

    Anguish of a Poet
    I’m writing a poem that needs to be deep
    It’s supposed to have rhythm and metrical feet
    Through bang-head-here moments I moan and I weep
    While googling synonyms that start with an e.

    Yeah, reflecting back, that may qualify as terrible.

    Liked by 2 people

  5. Open slather

    You are so well-rounded that you could be compared to a turnip,
    and indeed you have earned it.
    Everything you touch seems to turn to gold;
    each and every talent that you hold.
    Even when you play the violin
    it’s so sensual it’s almost a sin.
    When you simply fry an egg
    it’s ten times tastier than when it’s fried by my Aunty Peg.

    With a paint brush in your hand
    you make Leonardo d’Vinci less a man;
    not to mention when you so arithmetic
    you are better at arithmetic than Arius was at being a heretic.
    There’s very little you could be taught
    when it comes to sport.
    Compared to you the rest of us look dumb
    so there’s no reason to walk around like you’ve got a carrot stuck up your bum.

    Liked by 1 person

  7. The Weekly Brouhaha

    Every week, Ms. Chelsea posts
    Hey you lot, write something gross!
    Do your worst and you’ll get our praise;
    Do your best, you’ll get week old mayonnaise.

    And so I do, and so it went
    Until I gave my last two cents.
    I’ve wrote about summer, literary masterpieces and the lot
    I’ve won twice, and I’m besought

    So tell me now and tell me true
    Who is the worst poet for you?
    Is it so terrible to terribly tell a little lie?
    And say that perhaps it’s the great Kahunana himself, Mr. Billy Sly?

    No one understands the guy who Shakes the Speares
    He could be making it up after all the years
    No one understands what he’s trying to say
    Truly, he’s laughing from his grave and giggling all the way.

    Death to Oxford Commas.
    Zazzle.

    Liked by 2 people

  8. The Car Nation On A Lawn

    Eee ha, ho down horse around,
    dance the rainy reign reins away.

    Rains rein in the picnic nit picks
    but for every weed given rein to,
    there will grow a rein-Carnation
    and a carnation reincarnated as a weed.

    Liked by 2 people

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  12. I sweated, I wept, I edited, changing words, deleting, re-writing, trimming it down from over 260 words to under 200 hundred, even through in (see? I’m hilarious) a few misspellings for luck. Finally, I felt I’d triumphed; that my poem WOULD be the most terrible of the week, if not the year. Yes, I was proud, and yes, pride comes before a fall; I’ve read some of the other contestants’ work. It puts me to shame. I am unworthy. I will face the degradation and submit this poem anyway. It’s not the winning that matters, but the taking part, right? I’m not crying; there’s grit in my eye (sniff).

    Sunset, Sunrise

    Slumped on sofa, feeling low,
    Don’t wanna shop or outside go,
    Shocking din beyond window;
    Apocalypse? Malignant crows?
    Curtains closed, so I don’t know,
    But curiosity, so

    I think take a look,
    Rise to feet discarding book.
    Need to eat, don’t want to cook.
    Kitchen no cavern – more a nook…
    Is it birds or fatal fluke?
    Peak between drapes like cornered crook.

    Three car pile-up – bedlam there,
    Poking bones, blood-mussed hair.
    Look away from sickening scare,
    See ribbons of colour streaking the sky and I carelessly cease to care,
    Horizon highlighting rhapsody rare;
    Surprising sunset, breathtaking flare.

    Pity poor victims; tarmac is read,
    Rubberneckers shaking heads,
    Twisted bodies lately dead.
    Making sandwich, ready for bed,
    Scraping mould from hunk of bread;
    Provocative dreams if properly fed.

    Pluck off blossoming, blue-grey yeast,
    Anticipating impromptu feast,
    Unforeseen shock – view faces east.
    Time is thieving, night-fleecing beast.
    Feel like a flock of silly geese;
    Sunset west, sunrise east.

    Radio wakes in hollow bedroom,
    Morning call; warning tune.
    Sat through night, blind to gloom.
    Feel foreboding, forthcoming doom.
    Skin feels pocked with autumn bloom.
    Off to horrid office soon.

    Better slough of sleepless grime;
    Supper’s off; it’s breakfast time.

    Liked by 2 people

  13. Here’s my poem entitled “Roses are Red”:

    Roses are red
    and white and pink.
    Roses can also be
    orange, I think?

    Violets are blue,
    And uh, tulips are…yellow?
    I don’t know, I’m not a botanist. Or a poet.
    So the end, I guess. Bite me.

    Liked by 2 people

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