given the highly intellectual discussions this site’s commenters have become known for, it seems safe to assume that the question “how are we to judge poetry?” is one that you, dear reader, have no doubt pondered on many an occasion, along with other more academic concerns such as the proper resting state of the toilet lid.
well, as the late philip larkin once said, “i think a poet should be judged by what he does with his subjects, not by what his subjects are.” with that in mind, which of these poets would you judge “less likely to make you totally vom”?
is it this one, from a university campus in toronto?
…or is it this one, spotted by kacey at the ymca in the university town of champaign, illinois?
related: a limerick
extra credit: the poet of dirty words: reconsidering philip larkin [slate.com]
221 responses so far ↓
#1
aaa
All we need to know is that poetry blows.
Oh, and this:
http://www.threadless.com/product/548/Shakespeare_Hates_Your_Emo_Poems
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:21 pm rating: +1
#2
Kev Orng
That first one was written with a grant from Heritage Canada.
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:24 pm rating: +23
#3
Mark
One of my favorite bathroom graffitis from college:
“Flush twice, it’s a long way to CK”
(CK = Central Kitchen, the root of all evil, where most of the crappy food is made)
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:24 pm rating: +4
#4
Mark
Why is the first note cut out to look like a puddle of jizz?
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:25 pm rating: +7
#5
Sirius
Both of these poems make me want to strangle the poet (and no, that’s not a euphemism for what I usually do in the stall).
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:26 pm rating: +22
#6
crunchy granola
forget about the horrible poetry… i think al gore would be disappointed if you flush three times every time you drop a deuce
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:27 pm rating: +54
#7
Mishee
As long as there isn’t any snarky poems about not doing drugs, I am fine with these bathroom rules…
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:27 pm rating: +11
#8
shane
Nauseating. Right up there with “If you sprinkle when you tinkle, be a sweetie and wipe the seatie”.
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:33 pm rating: +4
#9
jfruh
Apparently “here” and “air” rhyme in Canada? It really is a different country up there!
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:37 pm rating: +7
#10
SomeGuyWhoNeverComments
That shit really stinks.
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:46 pm rating: +9
#11
Canthz_B
Shit, flush, flush, wipe, flush?
This project is becoming too complicated and I’m losing interest in it.
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:48 pm rating: +52
#12
bean
Is the second author going to pick up my poo and bring it back to me if I don’t flush three times?
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:52 pm rating: +4
#13
jimmyjimmyjimmyjimmy
“or all you’ve done comes back to you” Christ, I only wanted to do a shit and now and now I’m being lectured about everything wrong I’ve done in my life
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:53 pm rating: +8
#14
Canthz_B
Our “poet #1″ has posted the resume she submitted to Proctor and Gamble for a job as a Professional Sniffer in the deodorant division.
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:56 pm rating: +2
#15
shane
I hear they also have an opening as Feminine Hygiene Bin Monitor. Casey, can you confirm?
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:58 pm rating: +20
#16
amazon
I vote for #2 (tee hee). Afterall, brevity is the soul of wit.
p.s. What’s up with the Brit’s getting a different title and cover for their version of the PAN book??
Jul 22, 2008 at 4:59 pm rating: +3
#17
The Modern Gal
They could have at least obeyed the rules of rhythm and meter.
Jul 22, 2008 at 5:01 pm rating: +3
#18
tk.
The “rhyming” in the first one hurts to read. “Ail ye” and “daily”? Totally vom.
Jul 22, 2008 at 5:07 pm rating: +2
#19
Ryan
Do you know what “ails” me? Shitty Poetry.
Jul 22, 2008 at 5:08 pm rating: +7
#20
Em Tee
Both hurt my soul. What happened to the fine art of the haiku?
Your poo is smelly
I will hunt you if needed
Learn to flush Bitches
Clever it ain’t, but brevity tastes good.
Jul 22, 2008 at 5:13 pm rating: +31
#21
Candice
Re: 2nd note…
Why are we flushing, not just once, but twice before we wipe? Can we flush once in mid-shit and once afterwards or is it absolutely necessary that we flush twice post-shit? And considering we have to flush again after we wipe, why can’t we combine at least one of the post-shit flushes with the wipe flush?
Jul 22, 2008 at 5:21 pm rating: +1
#22
zorinlynx
It reminds me of this one I saw years ago:
“If it’s yellow, let it mellow;
If it’s brown, flush it down.”
This was apparently intended to keep the septic system from flooding. I don’t particularly enjoy entering a bathroom smelling of multiple people’s urine, though. Ugh.
Jul 22, 2008 at 5:22 pm rating: +1
#23
Sra
There’s simply no reason to talk about poo in a pretty way.
Jul 22, 2008 at 5:30 pm rating: 0
#24
laura jeanette
Why can’t they just get more efficient toilets? They make toilets that determine if you need a big flush or a little flush and act accordingly. I think that would make Al Gore happy.
Jul 22, 2008 at 5:31 pm rating: +6
#25
anon
When I was in college, a sign went up in our dorm toilet stalls:
Urinate or deficate,
Please do not ejaculate!
Jul 22, 2008 at 6:07 pm rating: +8
#26
agirlie
wtf?
way to creative for me.
Mine would say:
did you leave a shit?
don’t forget to flush it.
Can I steal the first one for our bathroom, not that the kiddles can read…….
Jul 22, 2008 at 6:43 pm rating: 0
#27
Melissa
In the wastewater treatment biz (wastewater is a politically correct name for sewage), we say “Flush twice, it’s good for business.” Maybe we should be more ambitious and go for three!
Jul 22, 2008 at 6:52 pm rating: +5
#28
ama
don’t you hate it when your paperwork comes back to you.
please let the first sign be from a co-ed bathroom (Dear Ladies…) please, please please
Jul 22, 2008 at 6:54 pm rating: +2
#29
Canthz_B
Shitty-shitty,
Flush-flush
Shitty-shitty
Flush-flush
Shitty-shitty
Wipe and
Flush that too.
Oh we shitty-shitty
Flush-flush
Shitty-shitty, wipe and
Flush that too!
Jul 22, 2008 at 7:05 pm rating: +13
#30
RALPHY
The two notes show the geological differences in Canada and the U.S. Canadian poo, once expelled from the body, sucks all the o2 from the atmosphere and you, indeed, wind up with a “room with no air” annihilating all but the most hardy of souls. In Illinois, as in most of the U.S., we have a ventilation system that, with the help of multiple flushes (and we do sooo want to be nice), takes care of most of the problem. Now drugs and wacking off in there are a whole new set of issues.
I’ve made a study of this.
Jul 22, 2008 at 7:12 pm rating: +6
#31
Canthz_B
Constipation
Holmes: “You don’t look well, Watson.”
Watson: “No shit, Sherlock!”
*don’t hurt me
Jul 22, 2008 at 7:18 pm rating: +12
#32
Burghardt
News flash for both notes, “You’re in a BATHROOM! What did you expect it to smell like?” If you can’t make a stink in a bathroom, what options are left? The dumpster in the alley?
Jul 22, 2008 at 7:26 pm rating: +9
#33
Canthz_B
Yes, Tony Orlando and Dawn were shitty:
Oh my darling,
Flush three times,
On the toilet,
To be turd free.
Only flush twice,
If you can’t let it go.
Jul 22, 2008 at 7:28 pm rating: +10
#34
NoPunIntended
Flushing mid-shit violates my rules… I can only flush if the lid is closed ’cause I heard this thing once that the poo gets mistified and gets on your toothbrush… can we say gross!
Jul 22, 2008 at 8:24 pm rating: +6
#35
NoPunIntended
Fuck off poetry
Haiku is where it is at
So much easier
A trip to the loo
It is a big number two
Such a smelly poo…
What oh, what, to do?
When it’s done, that’s your cue,
Simply flush the loo.
Jul 22, 2008 at 8:43 pm rating: +6
#36
plumpdumpling
I guess I like #2 because I believe in its message. I used to flush and flush and flush out of politeness. But then one of the women from the office next door pooed all over the toilet seat in our shared floor bathroom. And now I get a sick, wonderful pleasure from letting my stench seep from under the door of my stall into theirs.
Jul 22, 2008 at 9:39 pm rating: +3
#37
Martin Heidegger
Ugh. What irks me here is not the passive-aggressiveness of the notes but the poor rhyming scheme and awkward meter.
I should have been an English major.
(Does anyone *ever* say that?)
Jul 22, 2008 at 11:08 pm rating: +4
#38
Canthz_B
I think both authors are future Poet Loo-reates!
Jul 22, 2008 at 11:33 pm rating: +5
#39
reyna ulikba
ahhh… ehem.
“Tell me how I’m supposed to breathe with no air?
Can’t live, can’t breathe with no air
It’s how I feel whenever you ain’t there
It’s no air, no air
Got me out here in the water so deep
Tell me how you gonna be without me
If you ain’t here, I just can’t breathe
It’s no air, no air”
All together now…
Jul 23, 2008 at 12:19 am rating: +6
#40
Canthz_B
If the secret of success is location, location, location, then these two writers should be quite successful!
Jul 23, 2008 at 12:21 am rating: +1
#41
KMax
I want to know if someone is monitoring the toilets in the same way they’re monitoring the feminine waste bins. And reporting those who only flush once, or even twice.
Jul 23, 2008 at 12:56 am rating: 0
#42
Nolanimrod
Oh, Mark! You give away too much of yourself (as, according to you, you have done on numerous occasions).
A REAL man doesn’t know what “a puddle of jizz” looks like, said “puddle” having been deposited in a place where it is not visible.
Jul 23, 2008 at 2:23 am rating: +2
#43
Jsmoke
Shitter was full!
Jul 23, 2008 at 3:15 am rating: 0
#44
Russ
People think these signs are so clever– I’m not terribly amused. I think their poetry skills can be put to be use.
http://death-sentences.blogspot.com/
Jul 23, 2008 at 4:21 am rating: 0
#45
Holiday Djinn
Al Gore is monitoring how many times you flush. . . .
Seriously though, I have always thought flushing twice for a normal duece was greedy. The exception is if you take a really big “iceberg” crap. So called becuase only 1/3 of its total mass is seen above water. When you have an iceberg in your toilet, then you should be allowed a double flush. Never when seated though. Who wants that shit on their cheeks?
Jul 23, 2008 at 7:09 am rating: +4
#46
ama
Alexander Poop would be proud. I mean, Pope. Also, Edgar Allan Poo. POE!
Jul 23, 2008 at 7:41 am rating: +2
#47
ama
What happens to a poo deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Langston poos.
i’m def. going to hell for this.
Jul 23, 2008 at 9:10 am rating: +22
#48
Quite Contrary
Why do you think you are going to hell? You simply have a curious mind. Nothing wrong with that. You mother, Jesus, and Al Gore would approve.
Jul 23, 2008 at 10:03 am rating: 0
#49
Sandra
Only flush for big jobs. For small jobs, see Casey in HR.
Jul 23, 2008 at 10:11 am rating: +2
#50
super pooper
I hate the people that made these poop poems worst of all. The nice thing about it is that their poetry is posted in a location where there is a convenient disposal appliance handy – Flush Twice when washing down shitty poetry!
Jul 23, 2008 at 10:32 am rating: +2
#51
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog
I POOP ON YOUR POEMS!~
Jul 23, 2008 at 10:33 am rating: +2
#52
Joy McGreedy
One thing is for sure – poo is the common denominator that unites us all.
And nothing explains it better than the lyrics to this song from the killer musical episode of Scrubs:
Everything Comes Down to Poo
J.D.: You see….
Everything comes down to poo!
From the top of your head, to the sole of your shoe
We can figure out what’s wrong with you by lookin’ at your poo!
Turk?
Turk: Do you have a hemorrhoid or is it rectal cancer?
When you flush your dookie down, you flush away the answer!
J.D.: It doesn’t really matter if it’s hard or if it’s loose
We’ll figure out what’s ailing you, as long as it’s a deuce!
Yes!
Everything comes down to poo!
Nurses: Everything comes down to poo!
J.D.: Cardiovascular and lymphatic, yes, the nervous system, too!
All across the nation, we trust in defecation!
Everything comes down to poo!
Turk: If you want to know what’s wrong, don’t sit and act so cool
Just be a man and eat some bran, and drop the kids off at the pool!
Robed Woman: My stomach hurts
J.D: Check the poo
Limping Woman: I sprained my ankle
Turk: Check the poo!
Bloody Shoulder Guy: I was shot!
J.D: Check the poo!
Delivery Guy: A homeless guy threw poo in my eye!
Turk: Check the poo!
Delivery Guy: Mine or his?
J.D: First him, then you!
It may sound gross, you may say “shush!”
J.D. & Turk: But we need to see what comes out of your tush!
Because!
All: Everything comes down to poo!
Whether it’s a tumor or a touch of the flu!
J.D. & Turk: Please, won’t you pinch us off a big, fat clue!
Turk: Our number one test is your Number Two!
All: If there’s no breeze, light a match please!
Everything comes down to –
J.D.: Doo-doo!
Turk: Doo-doo!
J.D.: Doo-doo!
Turk: Doo-doo!
All: Everything comes down to … poo!
Jul 23, 2008 at 11:53 am rating: +2
#53
Chloe
I’d like to smack the person who wrote that first one.
Jul 23, 2008 at 11:54 am rating: +1
#54
Xtroll
What’s really comical about the whole thing water acts as a odor barrier so once your poo hits the water and sinks, you can’t smell it anymore. What your smelling is the gases that came out with your poo and the poo still stuck to your back side and all the flushing in the world isn’t going to help that.
If you don’t believe me about that water is an odor barrier, why do you think they got drain traps? It’s not to collect everything and get plugged up because without drain traps, everything would just flow freely away. Drain traps are there to hold water in place to keep the smells of the sewer or septic system from filling your home. Try removing a drain trap sometime and see what lovely odors come out for you to enjoy. So unless your poo is floating around on the top of the water which sounds like a personal problem, you don’t need to flush twice. That is unless you can’t get it all down with one flush but again, that sounds like a personal problem.
Jul 23, 2008 at 11:56 am rating: +7
#55
MJ
Why in the FUCK is nature capitalized?!? Uh!!! People are so stupid!
Jul 23, 2008 at 12:55 pm rating: +1
#56
ssb
flush THREE times? what a waste of water.
Jul 23, 2008 at 1:03 pm rating: 0
#57
Kev Orng
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately Golden Throne decree:
Set where the sacred plumbing ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So 100 square feet of fertile ground
With tasteful tiling girdled round :
And there were towels bright with lacy frills,
And fine porcelain gleaming, white and pure;
And here’s a mirror hiding Kubla’s pills,
And magazines to read whilst he endures.
But oh ! Those abdominal rumbles which started
Deep in the bowels under cover !
A savage gurgle! Then Kubla farted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this rumble, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
The stench made problems for people breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail :
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred throne.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the mighty odour ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Intestinal voices prophesying more !
The shadow of the throne of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
============
YES! I know, I hardly had to change the second half of this at all. But I have to get back to work. Besides, if Coleridge couldn’t be bothered to finish it, why should I?
Jul 23, 2008 at 2:06 pm rating: +11
#58
Mark
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless logs of poo
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d commode lies, whose loo
And downturned lid and smear from old hand
Tell that its sculptor well those vapors spray’d
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these stinking things,
The fan that vent’d them and the fart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my turds, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal deuce, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
———
Wow, these “adaptations” are surprisingly difficult.
Jul 23, 2008 at 2:32 pm rating: +11
#59
Kev Orng
1 First God shook heaven & earth
2 The smell was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the odour of God was moving over the face of the waters.
3 And God said, “Let a match be lit”; and there was light.
4 And God saw that the light was good;
and that the match separated the stench from the air.
5 God sat for another Day, and through the darkness he called Night.
Through the evening until next morning, one day.
6 And God said, “Let there be an extra flush in the midst of the shitting, and let it separate the shitting from the wiping.”
7 And God made the extra flush and separated the shitting which was before the first wiping from the shitting which was after the first wiping.
And it was so.
8 And God called the air quality Heaven. And sat for another evening, and there was morning, a second day.
9 And God said, “Let the waters under the bottom be flushed together to one place, and let the fecal deposits disappear.”
And it was so.
10 God called the fecal deposits Poo, and the waters that were gathered together he called Tinkle. And God saw that it was good.
11 And God said, “Let the ass expel digested vegetation, plants and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth.” And it was so.
12 The ass expelled vegetation, plants and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind.
And God noticed that it kinda stank.
13 And he sat another evening unto morning, a third day.
14 And God said, “Let there be matches lit in the firmament of the heavens to separate the smell from the air;
blah blah blah, and on the 7th day he rested.
Jul 23, 2008 at 3:04 pm rating: +16
#60
Stringyhair
It is like a breath of fresh air that the writer is more concerned with the smell than the streaker. Seriously this poem would have been perfect if they could have added anything about “being in a rush, but don’t forget to use the brush.” Or “Your mom doesn’t work here, refill the toilet paper.” It’s a shame…
Jul 23, 2008 at 3:27 pm rating: 0
#61
ama
STOOL RULES! SO STAY IN STOOL! 4 LyFE
Jul 23, 2008 at 3:41 pm rating: +1
#62
izzyboy
Not from his ass,
Had it the ability for pooping,
He never thought you should flush it thrice,
But since, so jump upon this stinky question,
You from the women’s room, and you from the men’s,
Are here arrived give order that this poopies
High on a stool be placed for the smell,
And let me speak to the yet unsmelling world
How these things came about, so shall you smell
Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural shits
Of accidental gruntings, casual splatters,
Of shits stunk out by cunning and forced push,
And in this stankness, purposes mistook
Fall’n on the shitters pooping, all this can I
Truly Deliver.
Jul 24, 2008 at 1:07 am rating: +1
#63
Jsmoke
“I crap, therefore I am”—Descartes
Jul 24, 2008 at 3:12 am rating: 0
#64
chick
i’d like to see what poems these people come up with if they were to visit me in the middle east. over here, toilets sometimes consist of holes in the floor with poo in them. and when you try to pee, you splash OTHER PEOPLE’S POO (infinitely worse than toilet water) onto your ankles. (never mind shitting while squatting.) there is no water to block the smell. toilet paper is nonexistent unless you bring it with you.
if there is a western-style toilet, it has a rusty bidet with someone else’s feces still clinging to it. one of my friends once claimed she was raped by the toilet when she sat down too fast and the poo-covered bidet went up her ass.
so i have a poem for you, oh collegiate authors:
if you don’t have to shit in a hole
shut up
jerk
Jul 24, 2008 at 6:30 am rating: +4
#65
thebis4uknow
Doesn’t this spit in the face of water-saving?
Jul 24, 2008 at 9:43 am rating: 0
#66
Lauren
Why’s it always in Canada?
Jul 24, 2008 at 10:37 am rating: 0
#67
agong
secret msg to rb:
flash than flush!!
Jul 24, 2008 at 6:00 pm rating: 0
#68
agong
yes my wallabee!!!
Jul 24, 2008 at 6:28 pm rating: 0
#69
elvinpixie
LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like the overwhelming smell inside a sty;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
Struggling and straining, this is hell:
Smells that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question …
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go, I have to shit.
In the room the women come and go
Flushing twice is not enough, you know.
The yellow smell that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow stench that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the stuff that falls from potties,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the tank, and fell asleep
My deepest apologies, Mr Elliot
Jul 24, 2008 at 7:26 pm rating: +2
#70
Mark
Whose turds these are I think I know.
He’s sitting on the toilet though;
He will not see me stopping here
To smell his deuce stink up the show.
My little nose must think it queer
To smell those turds while I drink beer
Between the beans and yummy steak
The rankest evening of the year.
I give my hairy balls a shake
To make sure that I stay awake.
The only other smell’s the stench
Of broken wind and chocolate cake.
The toilet’s stinky, wet, and deep.
But I have toilet seats that weep,
Because I pee before I sleep,
Because I pee before I sleep.
—————————
Meh. Not my best work, but…
Jul 25, 2008 at 1:47 pm rating: 0
#71
bobby
Guess what doesn’t rhyme. Here and air.
Jul 25, 2008 at 2:14 pm rating: 0
#72
Mrs Marcos
My grandparents had terrible septic problems at their cottage so they posted a sign (YEARS ago):
“If it is brown
Flush it down!
If it is yellow
Leave it mellow!”
So awesome (especially when they reminded you)!
Jul 25, 2008 at 11:17 pm rating: 0
#73
EGO
If you sprinkle, when you tinkle,
please be neat and wipe the seat….
Jul 28, 2008 at 5:51 pm rating: 0
#74
Elspeth
I can’t decide whether mandating how someone poops or writing such horrible poetry is the most offensive crime against humanity.
Oct 2, 2008 at 8:40 pm rating: 0
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