The exercise:
Write a four line poem about: the trainer.
Just stumbled upon this, courtesy of Neil Gaiman. Could not possibly agree more with Gilbert. Not sure I could be more disgusted with Roth.
Mine:
He's an expert in his field,
He knows how it's all done.
But when it's time to explain
His IQ shrinks to one.
2 comments:
Mr. Roth doesn't seem to have done himself any favours there! He is, of course, entitled to his opinion, but he appears to have forgotten that any sufficiently public person doesn't get to have private opinions unless they actually do keep them to themselves. That said, while I agree with the author of that piece that writing is hard, I also think it is "real work", albeit less dangerous than a steel mill. And reasonless discouragement is a disservice to everybody. (Actually all reasonless actions are a disservice, but then I have to qualify reason and this becomes a sixty page philosophical discourse...).
Enough of that.
Your poem today reminds me of my supervisor at university. Very, very clever man, but dreadful at teaching or explaining. So your poem resonants on a fairly deep level with me :)
The trainer
She's standing at the sink,
Pouring soup through someone's shoe.
She asked him for a strainer,
But he heard "trainer"; she's making do.
[Hopefully trainer as short for training shoe isn't too much of a Britishism!]
Greg - I don't think she was suggesting that it's not real work - but then again it's late and I haven't taken the time to read it again. It very definitely is, I've found that out for myself!
Hah, thanks for the laugh your poem gave me. And I've watched enough British TV and films, and read enough British authors, to not suffer from any confusion due to your use of trainer :)
Post a Comment