Dear Mr. Internet

I mentioned a few entries back that I tried out being a poet, specifically a spoken word (or slam) poet.

I did not enjoy myself.

It's not that I missed my calling as a poet (I am, by all objectionable accounts, a poet of passable quality, like All-Bran is to cereal or soft punk music is to party songs). However, the thing that really turned me off spoken word poetry were the kinds of poems that this genre attracts. I am aware that spoken word poetry is perceived as the stomping ground of hipsters, too-cool to only have one facial piercing, too-erudite to favour the mp3 over vinyl, too-experienced to not wear the Doc Martens they bought at a thrift store that cost them more than if they had just bought them brand new and I am here to tell you that this is only 80% true!

The poems that tend to be performed are ones of angst, anger, frustration desperation, betrayal, et cetera. I am a believer in Marshall Mcluhan, and I do believe that different mediums are equipped to tell different stories. Wuthering Heights will never be made into a better film than the book. No novelization of Withnail & I will surpass Bruce Robinson's cult classic film. However, I think that comic poets are a largely untapped goldmine of literary goodness. I've thought that for a while- why do these slam poets never try to make anyone laugh and nothing else? I'm not going to name names, but some poets will make a joke only to make their audience later feel bad for laughing, so as to punctuate their point about how we think of female fictional characters and we're misogynistic at heart, or whatever. So here is a poem I wrote with the sole intention to just be silly, maybe make someone smile, even get a nod of the head.

Dear Mr. Internet~

I'm a huge fan

And I want to take some time to thank you. You are a great inspiration to me, and I am not the kind of person who likes to gush or faun

I don't usually write fan-mail but...thanks for all the free porn

And thank you for inventing Youtube.com. I like epic rap battles of history, and I feel better knowing that we share this in common

Thank you for the world's largest repository of kittens

Another thing- it's great that you've made me feel like I'm part of a community. It's a feeling that's eerily close to perfection- I've said it

Now we can communally hate Justin Bieber on Reddit

Thank you for giving me Google. That Google idea was a ten-out-of-ten

Thank you for allowing me to go clothes-shopping in the comfort of my own home. Thank you for the porn: again

But there's a few questions I'd like to put to you. I'll try to make it brief:

Are there really sexy singles in my area dying to meet me? Bullshit. No one in my area has a full set of teeth.

Furthermore, stop offering me penis enlargement pills. My penis isn't small- it's just further away.

Anyway, Internet, I have to gee-tee-gee, as it were. All I really wanted to say was that on this one planet, I can vouch for one person you have affected...

And please, please, Internet, I never want you to be disconnected

Thank you.