The Third Annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Competition: And the Winner Is…

Oh boy, oh boy. So today’s the big day—it’s time for the announcement of our winners for the Third Annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Contest. This is surely the moment every person who’s ever dreamed of writing like a moronic college junior has been waiting for with bated breath.

And may we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” humbly say that it wasn’t easy to take home the gold this year? We received even more entries than in contests past. Clearly, sundry readers of our musings took it upon themselves to dig deep, find their inner 19-year-old, and write some wretched collegiate verse. Naturally, we thank them for it.

Unfortunately, however, this means that many who entered the contest won’t earn any prizes. If this is the case for you, dear reader, we humbly suggest that you take it out on our Official Contest Judge, that poet of the ages, Anonymous. Obviously, this guy wouldn’t know non-talent if it hit him in the face. (And we believe it did.)

Okay, you say: Enough of the hand wringing. Show us the big winners. Your wish is our command. We’ll start with our coveted 4th Runner-Up, which is actually a tie between two submissions. (All of the errors in the poems, we presume, are intentional.)

4th Runner-Up: Tie

“My sole is a frayed sock” by Rick Bagley

My sole is a frayed sock,

How soon we forget?

Ah, that’s some wonderfully awful stuff. We particularly enjoyed the line about the Statue of Liberty—the addition of that irrelevant factoid struck us as appropriately asinine for collegiate balladry.

“If Only” by Phoenix the Good

If only we could all be
One with the universe,
Nature,
And sea.

If only we could all stop
Driving our SUVs and
Emitting greenhouse gasses,
So that the ozone would not pop.

Our lust for the open road
Leads to wars,
And blood for oil,
All Halliburton Bestowed.

If Only we could all have a vagina,
Peace and love
For Mother Earth and Mankind,
Instead of this Societal Angina.

If Only there weren’t a Vast Right Wing Conspiracy
Committed to World Destruction
We’d all be hugging third world tyrants to our breasts
And drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon, you see.

Blame it all on the phallus
Of G-Dub and that Cheney Dick,
Seeking world domination
Spreading disease and malice.

Can’t we all just get along?
Hugo Chavez can’t be all wrong.
Saddam is misunderstood.
He’s a rich man’s Robin Hood.

Al Gore’s World Wide Web Spreads Lies
Bird Flu, AIDS, and Syphilis too
What’s a Womyn to do?
Spit in a NeoCon’s eyes.

Now, just in case it isn’t clear:
My tongue-in-cheek entry is here,
To show how “with it” and chi-chi
A Security Mom can be.

Oops, that probably lost me the award,
I’ve violated the tenets, and run off Chuck Schumer
flashed my ideological hoo-ha and bloomers
but I couldn’t help it, I was bored.

Who doesn’t enjoy a line like “Blame it all on the phallus”? Isn’t that a Michael Cain picture? All in all, Ms. Phoenix did a good job, but we feel that her work is a little too, in a word, literate.

3rd Runner-Up:

“W A R” by Quincy

W (for bush)
I, like bush, between legs,
butt… I can’t like bush,
chimpy(mC)hitler evil.
am I gay? maybe…
don’t like bush…

A (for Amerikka)
bush is Amerikka,
if M gay,
then can hate bush,
‘cause gays hate bush,
chimpy(mC)hitler evil.

R (for rights)
my rights,
to hate bush,
he a cock!
if M gay,
then must love a cock,
butt must hate bush!
no! confused!

chimpy(mC)hitler evil!
evil! evil! evil!

We delighted in this poem’s pathetic structure. But maybe it’s a bit too self-doubting for a pertinacious college junior?

2nd Runner-Up:

“Ode to an Undocumented Worker” by Cam

They call you illegal
but that makes me ill.
Legal or not you are
the backbone of our workforce.

Just because something is illegal doesn't make it bad.
And the same holds true for someONE as well.
You, my illegal friend, my hombre, mi amigo.
My human marijuana

Simply marvelous! The use of third-grade Spanish in faux-solidarity with the oppressed is a brilliant touch! And we love the fact that this deeply committed collegian didn’t even trouble himself to attend a march. Darn good, darn good.

1st Runner-Up:

“A baby seal walks into a club” by Mojo

A baby seal walks into a club
squealing and bleeding,
and orders a drink.
"Whadda ya want?" asks the neocon slavemaster
behind the boards
giving the baby seal a fishy look.
"SANCTUARY!" screams the baby seal
trying hard to look like Quasimodo
in a nice white fur coat.
But the bartender beat it to death
because he'd heard that joke before.
The murdering bastard.

Oh, what a delight! The very title of the verse is magical. This is the kind of pseudo-clever drivel that some boob in your Psychology 101 class could pen.

Given this kind of fearsome competition, the winner of our humble contest would have to offer a preternaturally wondrous poem. And Michael E. Lopez most certainly did.

In fact, Mr. Lopez, who has taken home the gold in both of our previous contests, came up with three heavenly verses, and it was hard to choose among them. But Anonymous particularly savored the following poem, and thus we are pleased to crown it our winner:

Winner:

“Privilege” by Michael E. Lopez

i m happy
the way i am
but wish sometimes

i was called on in class

i had my vote count and
not have stolen elections

i could see myself in important places
president or scientist

to be told i m smart

(im on the deans list)

to enjoy
privilege like them

i m happy
the way i am
but wish sometimes

i didnt have to wear a skirt

i didnt have to bleed

i didnt have to be afraid

i didnt have to endure
professors learing glares

i didnt have to wear my boyfriends
diamonds like a prize

or wear prada just to fit in

or be called a slut

or have the janitor
call me "miss" and open the door

(i can do it myself)

i m happy
just the way i am
but wish sometimes
i wasnt outside everything, alone-
its not like slavery, not like being gay

(but almost)

i sometimes wish i had a penis
and sometimes it makes me cry to know
i will never enjoy

privilege

Oh, man! Does it get any better than this? Mr. Lopez has drunk deep from the well of inscrutably bad undergraduate balladry. It’s simply spot-on. And thus we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” wish to congratulate him for his victory in the Third Annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Contest.

Can anyone snatch the crown from Mr. Lopez’s crowded brow? One very short year from now, we’ll find out.