Spam-provised Text
If you’re a WordPress blogger, you likely use Akismet. My blog gets a lot of spam and Akismet kindly gathers it all in one place where I can review it to make sure real comments haven’t been tagged as spam.
So, I scan a lot of spam and I’ve noticed that comment spam seems different from email spam.
For one thing, it’s a lot longer. And it’s bursting with links. And it contains some (okay, a lot of) inappropriate language. But other parts of these messages remind me of something else … improvised text.
…
We singers have a huge bonus (or albatross, depending on your perspective *wink*) in our improv toolbox — language. That’s right, we get to use words. This excites some of us and terrifies others. From where, after all, are these words supposed to come? (Read on, dear Reader, read on.)
…
One of the things I practice in improvising is working with language. At Songtaneous sessions, we play word games with the goal of detaching language from a sequential or consequential, literal context to explore its more poetic, playful and percussive qualities. (I find I do language work best with other people. It helps me circumvent all the rules I make up for myself.)
Long story short(ish), I realized in scanning through the many spam comments I receive each day, that there’s a kind of computerized poetry here.
As an exercise, I took one of today’s spam comments and imagined I was going to use it to create an improvised piece.
My guidelines were pretty simple; I could leave out words and use phrasing (punctuate), but I couldn’t reorder the words. And I didn’t spend a lot of time reviewing the spam first. I tried to let my eye jump to a phrase and flow (albeit totally tangentially in some cases) to the next phrase that grabbed me. Below are my creations.
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Spam-provised Text
[created by deleting words and adding punctuation to today’s spam comment]
i
Nice people nest again catching the drug
them liked will marry
her? spotted horses, him? amoxycillin for trees
and because only them fixes the hostage
agreed direction
…
ii
the grapefruit stallion had false lead
few trees came with human family and better progress
fifty-year-old started crying sloppily
intended back together
another opening back inside
still betrothed had suffered the planet
maybe this straight back would reverse our sufficient experience
“wait here”
the jaws could make him hush
…
iii
physically far back
long-term memory loss
her straw our pain fading out
unsettling way
delightful place
would play over quite pretty
…
iv
not merely the simplest brass girl
illie works with that awful burden
concerned about more goblins seen outside
they, the mists
wing onto the smoky sigh
land when close
I think you have discovered the source of modern poetry.
21 Apr 2009 at 10:33 pm
Right?!
(And I had 47 more “sources” in my spam cache today. Maybe I’ll make this a regular blog feature? (c;)
singingly,
sg
23 Apr 2009 at 8:16 am
Except the good ones, of course — I am still annoyed that I can’t remember the poet who wrote “Black Earth, Wisconsin,” from an anthology that my book group read.
21 Apr 2009 at 10:33 pm