7 Easy Steps to a More Pretentious Poem
March 20, 2008 by John Hewitt
Need help annoying the hell out of your writer’s group? The best way is to learn how to write a pretentious poem. This lesson works best with an example, so let’s start with one of the simplest and most well known poems of all time.
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet,
And so are you.
This a simple poem. It is short, sweet and lacks pretension. Let’s fix it.
Step One: Add old time words nobody uses in real life
Roses doth be red,
Err violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet,
Thus so art thou.
Step Two: Add complex terms for simple words
Grandifloras doth be damask,
Err viola are azurite,
Sugar is ambrosial,
Thus so art thou.
Step Three: Add some foreign words and italicize them
Grandifloras doth be damask,
Err Viola are azurite,
Tener azucar ambrosial,
Thus so art thou.
Step Four: Add something technological so people realize you’re living in a new age
Grandifloras doth be damask,
Err Viola ping azurite,
Tener azucar ambrosial,
Thus thou art interfaced.
Step Five: Add some other modern stuff such as abbreviations and slang
OMG Grandifloras doth B damask,
Err Viola ping azurite,
Tener azucar ambrosial,
Thus thou RT interfaced sandwich girl.
Step Six: Mix up the line endings
OMG Grandifloras
Doth B
Damask, err
Viola ping
Azurite, tener azucar
Ambrosial,
Thus
Thou
RT interfaced
Sandwich girl.
Step Seven: Take out the punctuation
OMG Grandifloras
Doth B
Damask err
Viola ping
Azurite tener azucar
Ambrosial
Thus
Thou
RT interfaced
Sandwich girl
There you go. One gloriously pretentious poem in seven easy steps.
Related links
- Poetry Writing Tips (1.000)
- What are Metaphor, Simile and Analogy? (1.000)
- A Quick Guide to Acrostic Poetry (1.000)
- Four Things Poets Can Learn From George Carlin (1.000)
- 30 Poems in 30 Days (1.000)
My goodness. That last one looks like your typewriter fell down the stairs or something.
Although it does sound similar to the lyrical stylings of Homsar. Maybe he’s more pretentious than we thought…
through ironic looking lens
simple lines from poet’s pens
come off slick from glans sebaceous
and use red roses to be pretentious
Very true – K -. some people may want to stop at a certain level of pretension. Level seven pretension is for the truly bold.
Roses are red
Violets are grey
Oops wrong colour
Still never mind eh
The Baldchemist
Roses are red, dilly dilly,
Violets are blue,
Phone us from home, dilly dilly,
And we’ll send over Sue.
Violets are blue, dilly dilly,
Roses are red,
If you’re that way, dilly dilly
We’ll send Wilbur instead.
Very funny eh…
Throughly enjoyed it. And thumbs up to you buddy 
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Some poems rhyme,
But this one doesn’t.
I survived too many college poetry classes, too.
roses are red
violets are blue
all my base
are belong to you
roses are red,
violets are blue,
that poem sucked,
and i hope that wasnt a serious tutorial.
lol, Very funny.
You can also use a Burroughs approach…cut, scramble and paste with a little salsa:
Roses are red
Violets are
blue blue
Sugar is
you you
sweet
And so…
-|@ r #FF0000
-|< r #0000FF
let me has them
for u r l33t
I <3 u
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I can’t write cursive,
So they failed me.
-cry cry omg-
[...] Poetry Be?22 March 2008, the poet @ 9:09 pmJohn Hewitt wrote a fabulous blog post on how to write a pretentious poem in seven steps. It’s a rather fitting topic because the catch-phrase for poetry these days is [...]
seems to me the basis for the word pretentious is pretend – as in to make-believe: the enactment of a pretense; “it was just pretend”.
so if poetry can not be pretend – make believe, something that can move us out of ourselves – well why bother?
maybe this is just the bitter old rant of a poet who has often been called pretentious
or maybe this was just an easy shot by the original poster.
i mean golly it ain’t like the hoi polloi are running out to read poetry at all.
again golly gosh if william carlos williams did not write some of the most beautiful down to earth language in american poetry and yet he don’t get much notice in the mainstream…
any hoo keep up the good work – but remember there are enough forces trying hard to dumb down the anglosphere without us having to do their work for them.
if i need a dictionary to read a work, if i have to struggle through to understand “The Cantos” of Ezra Pound – so much the better for me.
Nerd out brothers and sisters – nerd out
roses are red.
violets are blue.
i’m a schizophrenic
and so am i!
I prefer Haikus
To this ungodly rubbish.
Simple is better.
I’d also include randomizing the capitalization a bit…gotta love gratuitous allegory!
The picture of the poet dood just _makes_ this article. Awesome.
yes, off topic but who is the “intense poet” pictured? He looks familiar
I call him Stock. Stock Photo.
The guy in the photo looks like Sawyer from “Lost”.
My most pretentious line
Will beat yours anytime
No words that else shakespeare wrote
Will wind you up, else a goat.
Forsoothe, forsway
My multitudinous madeupwords today
Will sink your lines and rhymes away
Punctuated only by devices
To make your breathing pause.
Roses are sweet,
Red is the new blue,
Bee’s are disapearing
and honey is too.
Tener azucar ambrosial? Are you grocery shopping?
Azucar es ambrosial.
I’m not sure where my last post ended up.. but i wanted to apologize again for posting this entire article. It’s been rectified.
Hi Coco,
This very poor use of Spanish was deliberate. Pretentious poets often don’t even understand what they are saying.
I like the whole roses are red kind of thing but I want to know who all likes this poem.. I wrote it.. so I am kind of curious of what people think.
Living Dead Girl
I called her. She didn’t answer.
Something is wrong. I know it, I can feel it.
Her light is on; it is bright, very bright. I opened the door.
I feel a cold draft coming at me.
It feels like 10 degrees. I see her zoning out. She has a smile on her face. I wonder why. The window is wide open, there is snow on the ground. I saw terror in her eyes. I start to smell blood. Maybe I could have smelt blood when I came in to her room but was to distracted on looking for her.
I see the cats liking her wrist. I wonder why. I see blood on the floor, in a puddle next to her.
Am I too late? Will she survive? Why did she do this? I can’t think.
I was disturbed by the way she laugh and laugh at the pain. Evan though she is laughing, you could see the terror in her eyes.
Red rose returns.
Blue violets fragrant stars.
Poetry loiters.
To think you have to make all those Lost episodes and have to b@gger about with ditties.
“It was upon a Summers shynie day,
When Titan faire his beams did display,
In a fresh fountaine, farre from all mens view,
She bath’d her brest, the boiling heat t’alley,
She bath’d with roses red, and violets blew,
And all the sweetest flowers, that in the forrest grew.
By Sir Edmond Spencer (1552-1599)
‘time’ to b@gger about…oops!
Roses are dead
violets are red
I cut my wrist to be with you instead.
[...] post info By starmanjones Categories: Humor and Literature Tags: artsy, conceited, fartsy, Lame, poetry, pretentious Via poewar.com [...]
The roses were red
Beside her bed, and
She was sweetly scented
With cinnamon and myrrh,
Leading me on like a
Bull to the slaughter;
It was almost biblical
The way my balls turned blue.
Yet, how could she be
Sweeter than you, my dear?
Who sold me sugar for
Twenty dollars?
LOL!
Roses are red
Violets are mauve
I painted them all
And they called me a fauve.
WoW,
DO i hA\ve to st|op u-
sing l(ow)er ks “i”?
Good work. I want to recommend Matt Groening’s Life in Hell series, where he has a one pager entitled “How to Become a Sensitive Poet.” It’s in the “Love is Hell” volume. (There’s also a Work is Hell and School is Hell, all three filled with desert-dry humor.) As a “sensitive poet” myself, I love the opportunity to reexamine those pretentions. Thanks for the thread.
This is amazing. If you follow these steps in reverse, you will have 7 easy steps to simplifying a poem.
Funny and great post, John. Valuable in showing how to turn the ordinary into something different. Marcel is right — follow the steps backwards…
Whoa — nice new design. Will study it a bit more and see how it flows. No worries — I don’t do drive by shootings MWP-style.
Not original … but
Roses are red
Violets are blueish
If it weren’t for Jesus
We’d all be Jewish
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Elephants are green
The sky is pink
Color blind we all be!!!
Roses draw blood
Violent Violet struts her stuff
She’s sacherinne sweet
when she drinks enough
Is that a poem :S well how do people understand what they want to say with that poem, what it means :S hell i didnt understand anything about that poem :S :S
Poewar is read,
And bloggers blew,
But not so sweet’s,
This rhyme for yew.
WTF is a typewriter?
HAHA! That was hilarious. Who needs poetry if we can laugh at other people’s pretentiousness!
ha ha ha ………..
Roses are red
awaiting the better u
Till then thorns
Is what u will see
That flower burns red like sweet fire
This one, blue like summer skies
But the confectioner’s treat
is not quite as sweet
As your rosy red, violet blue eyes
Not so pretensious, but it came to me and I wanted to write it down.
I’m currently trying my hand at writing a novella, and I found this site while searching for “writer’s resource”. I simply love the poetry section, and I’ll check out more articles later. Buh-bye, y’all!
THE ROSES WERE RED
VIOLETS WERE BLUE
BUT THEY HAVE WILTED
AND SO HAVE YOU
Akmak’s Lover’s Reply:
THE VIOLETS WERE BLUE
THE ROSES WERE RED,
BUT YOU WERE SO BORING
AND NO GOOD IN BED.
[only joking! I don't know Akmak.]
ugly betty:roses are red
violets are blue
my mother said im beautiful
what happen to you
nicholas:roses are red
violets are blue
who said you are beautiful
she’s lying to you
ugly betty:roses are red
violets are blue
everytime im in a toilet
im thinking of you
nicholas: roses are red
violets are blue
“I call him Stock. Stock Photo.” Hahaha
Roses doth be ruber,
Hamlets compadre be Horatio
He knoweth not that there be more to life,
Than Opelias Fellatio
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‘roses’ is plural, ‘doth’ is for singular. If you are going to use old words, use them right.
Excellent example of a pretentious comment Bart! You really caught the spirit of the post!