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Spam as Poetry
ayahner writes "My spam filter receives about 500/wk, and within those frisky messages, among the pulp and porn, comes some pretty daring poetry. So instead of simply removing the spam, I have decided to peruse my spam library and use the best to spur my creative energies. Do any /. members have their own favorites? I have compiled a few of my own, and expect to add many more over the next few weeks as a creativity exercise. All of the verses are taken from actual spam, and copied directly without modification. Some of them are nonsense. Others are real text of spam, delivering their message. When combined, they tend to form semi-articulate sentences. I see a virtual e.e. cummings here, an occasional Shakespeare there."
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I actually got a message title "HOT E.E. CUMMINGS POETRY ACTION!" That one took me by suprise.
This is reminiscent of the Outside the Inbox music compliation project.
The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,
He leadeth me beside the still waters,
He restoreth my credit and consolidateth my debts,
For as little as $1,750,
If I act now.
I expect universities to start issuing degrees in English with a Spam option now.
I won't settle for anything less.
This article appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on May 1st. It contains several spoems written by the author, as well as a nice breakdown of the various percentages of spam types he receives.
I've seen these sorts of poems appearing alot on blogs recently. Even tried my hand at it when I had half an hour to spare. It's good fun. Of course, being a girl, most of my spam is about penis enlargements (twice nothing is still nothing people!), but some of the more random spams make for interesting poetry.
Have you been recieving spam from Vogon.com? That is some bad poetry. kvn
The topic of filter-avoiding-spam-as-poetry received a humerous treatment on NPR a couple of months ago.
2 26
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1761
Check out Darwinian Poetry.
It gives you two "poems" at a time to read and consider. You vote for one, and the ones that get the most votes are "bred" to form the next generation.
I found the meaning of life the other day, but I had write-only access.
I got a spam the other day that was written in German, more or less. I ran it through babelfish and got the following amusing blank verse. You gotta love "rat-sharp Girls in the wildest floats." It has such a lovely rhythm.
Geile, lsterne virgins with those
it itches so correctly.
They want you,
it need it.
Heie galleries and sharp picture series.
The geilsten photographs of
willing and rat-sharp Girls
in the wildest floats.
You want the heiesten Teeniesex?
Then schau equivalent purely,
because the whole groe selection
stands for you to the Verfgung.
Actually, as far as I know, Dadaism and Tristan Tzara came up with the idea of cut-up poetry. Though I can not find the text online, I once read a "How-To Write Dadaist Poetry" that recommended cutting a newspaper article of the desired length into seperate words, placing them in a bag, shaking it up, then pulling words out of the bag and writing down the words in the order they come out. Using this technique, I wrote Egging.