Dibben?!

              One fateful day, during the third quarter of AP English 12, Ms. Serensky gave the class an assignment. The task was “‘Very simple, really’” (Kesey  293). Every writing pair had to write a seven to ten line poem that gave insight into the events of the previous night’s reading for Amsterdam. I will admit that I am no gifted poet; however, I luckily had the two editors of Prism to aid me. Unfortunately, Haley, Sarah, and I managed to make this simple task extremely difficult. We first had to pick certain words from our assigned section, prior to knowing they would be used in a poem. We choose such easily applicable words as “urinal” and “dyslexic.” The short section we had to analyze consisted of some rather bizarre and unconnected events: Vernon having an awkward conversation with an employee in the bathroom and a disgruntled dyslexic woman losing her job. Although the task at hand was to give insight, we seemed more determined to make the events less intelligible. I knew that the poem was not exactly prize-winning material, but I could not stop laughing long enough to form a sentence to say that. So naturally, I just tried to convince myself that the poem actually made sense. What can I say, “my powers of self-delusion are sort of epic” (Currie 97). When it came time for our group to read the poem, I figured we might be able to trick the class into thinking the poem made sense if we read it really well. After all, “In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing” (Wilde 44). Sadly, we mustered neither style, nor sincerity for the occasion. Each of us took turns attempting to read our unintelligible poem to the class, but it ended in a fit of laughter. I literally had tears rolling down my cheeks while the rest of the class stared in confusion. It’s like when you try to retell a story that was so funny in the moment, but nobody really gets it a second time around, except it happened on a much larger scale this time. The three of us sat there laughing for the rest of the class period for no apparent reason. A few days later, we got the poem back; Ms. Serensky noted in purple ink, “Kind of confusing.” Honestly, that is an understatement. I located the actual poem and put below for you all to read. When I found it I started laughing again. I do not even know why. I guess that’s why it was my favorite day.

Dibben?!

Vernon!

Don’t approach him at the urinal,

Lest he come a turnin’

You want to write it in your journal

Dibben?

He halfheartedly apologized,

Not wanting to end in a wheelchair. Dibben?!

Vernon was not surprised

When the irresistible Clive phoned.

 But was, when the dyslexic moaned.

The End.