A Writer's Worst Friend

A poem on how grammar affects writing.

My name is R.J, and I was born

mere feet from a pen with paper,

in Cleveland, Ohio, where the doctor wrote down my

weight.

He measured in kilo’s

and wrote down the meters,

which, for him,

are socially correct.

As doctors have rules,

they are guided by metrics,

which are commonly accepted by

science.

But Ohio’s a state,

in the land of America,

and in it

we use pounds �" and not grams

because that is what

people-around-here

view as supposedly

socially

correct.

 

 

I do not care about grammar,

as I probably should.

I admit it is beautiful,

to read a group of words

connected

together with

a

beauteous comma or dash,

but life as I know it

can be just as nice

without e.e. cummings as ash.

Now I do have some limits,

some boundaries,

some lines

it seems I cannot cross,

cuz if I rite lk a

textr 4 part of my ritin,

I’m likely to keel over and die.

But as to what symbol I use,

what dot and what line,

I can’t know it all,

not all at one time.

It constricts me

my writing,

my words cannot flow,

if I worry to much

about grammar not prose.

 

 

 

“Idiot!” I say,

when I get back a paper,

from professor, or Mother or Pop’s

I’ve forgot they are writers,

and have learned their lessons,

about grammar and spelling and speech.

They can’t pass over the period’s,

the apostrophe’s, commas, and hyphens,

to look at the substance,

the assignment, the knowledge, the work.

So, “Idiot!” I say to them,

in anger at myself,

for expecting them to be naïve enough,

expecting them to be blind enough

to have experience with me enough

to understand my way.

 

I’ll never be recognized,

by those who share my passion.

because they are close-minded,

or smart-minded,

or socially

and politically

correct. I therefore pity myself.

I’m destined to failure

for my artistic creativity,

my ingenious,

my lack of knowledge,

my ignorance,

because it is different

from what they expect.

 

I do not write for the writers,

or readers

or princes royally trained,

I write instead for the

people,

the peasants,

the graves where dead writers lay.

 

because when I write, semi-colons arrive;

with commas thrown freely on the page

and sometimes, when a period is lacking, a symbol will appear of which I’ve made upϡ

 

From OH to PA,

this crime, it follows me,

makes me pain with disappointment.

(Accept me O Writers!)

O this Earth of mine,

(Accept me O Professors!)

O let me write freely,

(And accept me O Earth!)

For I am like the doctors,

with illegible prescriptions,

and metrics in yards.

I am no different from you,

except you write confined,

with society,

and

I believe,

that I write as I pleaseϡ

Reviews

[Katie Marie]

I love this poem! It explains many people's view on grammar. There are so many exceptions to the rules that are supposed to be followed, that it is nearly impossible to write something correctly. Then you get those people that criticize your writing because you didn't have the comma in the correct spot, or you used the wrong form of to, two, or too.
Very good write. :)