2020

Dear readers, writers, and random internet stumblers,

Unfortunately I plan to stop posting new content to the Parody website. The good news is that you can continue to enjoy the historical records for as long as the internet shall live (and I promise to finish transferring the full archives to the updated URL!).

You can also purchase print copies to squirrel away in the event that The Simplification comes around destroying such lovely artwork and knowledge as contained herein.

Thanks for 8 years of fun,

The Haikooligan
th@parodypoetry.com




Sharing the physical archives!

By the way, do you happen to know of a middle or high school teacher who would appreciate the complete set of Parody (volumes 1.1 through 6.2)? I'm happy to offer them for free! Doubly so if you're willing to help cover some of the cost of mailing with a donation of $5 - $10.

Send me the name and address (preferably the school's address) so I can prepare the poetry care package. Don't give your teacher apples, give them poetry!

19-52.2



To His Coy Wordsmith

Had we but world enough and time
this coyness, poet, were no crime;
I would sit down and trawl each phrase
for hidden nuances and ways
in which it might relate
to concepts that you'll never state.
I'd listen for the quarter rhyme
that's buried somewhere in the line,
engrossed as you'd recite me all
your poetry in a tedious drawl.
Hellenic imagery would lead
through dusty alleys where I'd read
cryptic allusions into each
veiled reference hung just out of reach.
   But at my back I ever hear
life's siren sound bites scurrying near
and yonder all before us lie
deserts of vast obscurity.
   Now therefore, lest sales of your verse
decline from some to something worse,
sprinkle your page with dancing fires
and satisfy my base desires
with music that stays with me long
after I've put away your song.
Tell me of heron-priested shores;
of boughs more silent than before.
Once coyness free, it's not a crime
for poetry to scan or rhyme
and, if you do recite it, try
to give it wings and let it cry.

by John Wood

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John Wood would love to be a Philip Larkin or a Dylan Thomas but, as it turns out, is a distinctly unliterary sometime ferry skipper and small time farmer from Cornwall, England. Ah well, if you can't do it, just enjoy it or parody it!

19-52.1



The Formalist

I give you now Professor Fist,
A storied verbal pugilist.
Said linguists, "He's above the rabble.
He'll never stoop to common babble."
Fist listened to his colleagues preach
On misuse of the parts of speech.
"Them that for 'whom' would give us 'who,'"
Chimed one, "are quite without a clue."
Fist smiled in his familiar way.
"You mean," he said, "not 'them,' but 'they.'"

by Julian D. Woodruff

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Julian D. Woodruff came to literary invention while telling authorities in East Berlin how he lost his passport. His poetry appears on the websites of Carmina and The Society of Classical Poets. Reedsy and Frostfire Worlds have each issued a short story. He is a member of the Rochester, NY Area Children's Writers and Illustrators and SCBWI.