Poems for a Poet: An Early Form of Shitposting

Risible teen angst

Back in the glory days of my career as an "Amazon.com reviewer" in the early 00s, I devised a precursor of shit-posting in the form of sarcastic poetic reviews of an album that I thought was overrated or somehow pretentious. 

These would be titled "Poem For a Poet" and would be prefaced by a brief explanatory note, followed by the actual poem itself. My inspirations were Private Eye's E.J. Thribb (17½) poems, Rik from The Young Ones, and William MacGonagall. It was also important for the poems to have occasional punning references to the album and song titles concerned (indicated here by italics).

Here are two examples, one for the Manic Street Preachers' Album The Holy Bible, the other for Nirvana's Nevermind. Both of them perform essentially the same function, mercilessly mocking the over-tormented souls of two flagrant moral signallers who finally committed suicide. Not that my poems had anything to do with that...

Manic Street Preachers, "The Holy Bible"

This was the last Manics album to feature the genius of Richey James Edwards. Richey was a great poet, so I decided to write my review as a poem. Also, I'm not going to give stars because I don't think Richey wrote his heartfelt lyrics to get stars on Amazon, at least, not the Richey I knew. (But I have to give him at least one star because Amazon doesn't allow you to give zero stars)

RICHEY
(Written on the 29th of September 2003, in the early hours of the morning after listening to all the Manics albums that had Richey on them and burning those that didn't.)

richey richey richey
come back from the pain!
What was it that drove you insane?
The motorcycle emptiness
of a World that don't care
for the blood on your arm
or the gel in your hair?
Or was it the landslide
that life had become
when they don't understand you
the music press skum!?
There were roses in the hospital
but richey wasn't one
The petals of poetry flow
on the Severn's red tide
but their beauty don't tell us
if richey really died
but even if he did
he still lives deep inside
us, 4ever 4 real

Nirvana, "Nevermind"

Kurt Cobain was a great poet, so I decided to write my review as a poem. Also, I'm not going to give stars because I don't think Kurt made music to get stars on Amazon, at least, not the Kurt I knew.

KURT COBAIN
(Written on the 26th of August 2001, in the early hours of the morning after listening to every single Nirvana album and getting high and then low and then high again.)

kurt cobain
What kind of name
was that
for a man with a brain?
Was this the reason
it drove him insane
or was it heroin pain
and deep disdain
for both life and death?
They just seemed the same

What kind of a name
was kurt cobain?
Americain with a European stain
kurt with a hurt
a person with a pain
born in the rain
Only way out was to
blow out his brain
sad-sad mad
DEAD!
DEAD! DEAD! DEAD!
kurt cobain