The Philolexian Society kicked off the 24th Alfred Joyce Kilmer Bad Poetry contest tonight to celebrate the shameful pleasure in good bad poetry.

The avatar of the club, Tom Vinciguerra, CC ‘85, dedicated the night to Kilmer, a previous Vice-President of the society, saying, “This event tonight is dedicated to Alfred Joyce Kilmer, who we all know will be laughing along with us tonight.” Among much raucous and persistent heckling from the audience, a myriad of brave poets stood and read their poems.

Chris Travis, CC ‘11, drew inspiration for his poem from of his notes from past Lit Hum lectures.  His play on Hamlet’s words of suicide expressed a situation many Lit Hum students face when confronted with much homework: “To read or not to read – that is the question.” He then related Dante to Kanye West, saying, “Hey old Virgil, I’m really happy for you and I wish that you had finished but I am the greatest poet of all time.” Finally of Euripides he said, “Oh Medea, you crazy black woman with a gun, / please don’t hurt those children / that be poppin’ that gum.” He left the stage with a final message: “Good poets steal, smart poets plagiarize.”

The poetry reading was not just for college students. Alex Fox, a young teenager, also braved the packed auditorium to impart his wise words onto the audience. He spoke of his wandering mind, saying, “My mind is wandering to many lands / of baseballs being thrown by hands. / I think the land / is called El Salvador,” and speaking quite eloquently, said, “My sadness fills me with sorrow.”

He also presented another poem, titled “Ooze”. He started his poem, “I am so sad this oozy day,” then continued, “My sadness is a wound / an oozy wound / that weeps for me.” He somberly concluded his poem, “But the ooze wins. / I faint. / I weep. / I sleep.”

In her poem, “Where Did Our Love Go?”, one poet spoke of lost love. She complained, “Our love is tougher to find than goddamned Waldo,” concluding, “Now our love is stuffed in a box under a bed. / Some think it’s alive, but it could be dead.”

Yet another poet talked of his frustration with his facial hair. He was able to reconcile his disappointment, concluding, “Drink not your sorrows at a stream. / A wispy hipster mustache would be much worse.”

Some poetry was more impromptu than others. Emily Kadish wrote her poem on her blackberry. Titled “Brickbreaker”, she questioned, “Do I, can I hate bricks?” then concluded, “Oh you bet I can / Bricks.”

From an ode to the fantasies of a gamer to a reinterpretation of The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’s theme song into a swine-flu warning, the poems were definitely diverse. Most were long, but there was one some haiku in the mix. “Love Letters” was the exact type of good bad poetry the contest called for. The haiku read, “Poor innocent Q / thinks he has found his soulmate. / But U gets around.”