Spam poetry

We are all inundated by spam, even with the most sensitive filters, which is why I still get a lot of junk but not so much in the Viagra and penis enlargement line as few years ago. What I do get are occasional bursts of spam with random subject lines. Nothing dirty, or even indicating what the message is about -- the only giveaway is the randomosity. So I decided to assemble some of these subject lines into a poem. The only words I added are those NOT in boldface, and I left each subject line intact (i.e., I didn't cut up the words in one subject line and intermingle them with words from another, and I didn't put any line breaks within individual subject lines). This may make it a little hard to read, but try to ignore the changing font faces as you are swept into the poetic flow.
As a class, the Lordships dearly loved their steam-chariots.

A pig heads
for trough everyone midshipmen,
in basal itself sailor.
The maple military
feels tendril altercation
in marquette between shame.

And the tweedy
nytimes obituaries oddpost office
lists duty auction.
They offer euridyce doctoral
yet they have map none sewerage.

For those
snowbound severely with broom disability,
it is timely idiotically,
as nostalgia to charm
or as feldspar
to pomegranate
so no bannister.

Tune to the
song lyrics channel;
it yourselves verse.
See a dewey graham,
hear a vandal whinny...

A career blonde engaged
feels the carpenter admiration
for the chain smoker mane;
Salma Hayek expecting.

There is no continuity.

I close with the words of another great poet: "Damn the electric fence! Damn the electric fence! Thank you. Thank you."

Comments

Anonymous said…
I love your idea of building a "spam poem" from random e-mail subject lines.

I'm working on a newspaper layout on the same basic subject - illustrating a few of the more bizarre subject lines that I've received.

Would you mind if I quote from your poem and/or blog item in my story? Please send me a note to give me your OK.

Thanks!

Greg Williams
The Tampa Tribune
gwilliams@tampatrib.com
pj said…
tooooo funny - i had the same urge when reading spam. here is my poem:

Junk Mail

But it was these solemn lessons which succeeded those –
the bedroom had changed and I was to lie a long way off.
I rambled over a hundred years run together through the trim

grass-plot, and was reminded I was now a rich man’s sister
and must appear suitably. There, said I, there is the man
who has the best right to open it. I crept, at last, upon a sort

of grass-grown battery overhung by a great cheerfulness
and quickness. I finished my search amidst murmurs and shrieks,
and deep shuddering whispers, exactly as my poor mother had

so often described the voice of my father, the SEAHORSE
(a deserter, a rebel, and now a condemned murderer).
Aye, aye? said Steerforth, returning. I was glad to see him,

this gentleman in a loose grey morning coat and waistcoat
of white answering with another entreaty to cheer up.
I had nothing better to offer than a timid, Oh, indeed.

He told me of Miss Betsey who lived near Dover and Prince
Alphabet turning topsy-turvy (no surprise to me, the latter,
the Prince being a simpering fellow with weak legs). The truth

of past pilgrims and of narrow-minded ones at present day,
we soon adorned with finery. Steerforth the Old Soldier fanned
himself in a sort of calm prophetic monologue that stopped seamen

by their very sleeves. This was something more than anything else
to me in my solitude and disgrace. I lay down in the old little bed
in the stern of the boat forgetting the revengeful boot-maker’s

remarks on my prettiness and turned my face another way.




~~~

Do you recognize the novel this spam must have been generated from?


Pam

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