Big Cat has decided to draw on his experiences (sitting on his Human-Mom’s head while she’s trying to write poetry; and listening in on conversations with Human-Mom’s friends when they trade poems back and forth) to bring you this handy guide. Which you shouldn’t really need. I mean. Finishing a poem can’t be that hard, can it? But for those of you who are having trouble… How do you know when a poem is done?
Big Cat’s Guide to Finishing a Poem
-Easy! When you can’t stand to look at it anymore, it must be done!
-Easy! When the person you wrote it for agrees to have sex with you. (Lookin’ at YOU, Shakespeare. Go home to your wife and children, you syphilis-vector.)
-Easy! When someone you respect reads it and says: Actually that’s not bad. Then you just have to say “What are you talking about? It’s trash!” for like three days. Then you calm down enough to read it and realize it’s alright. And then you have completed the process.
-Easy! Finishing a poem is what happens when you’ve found something to rhyme with “orange.” (J/K rhyming is for squares, man.)
-Ok. Maybe it’s not that easy. But it’s really just a matter of developing self-confidence. That’s all. I mean. If [insert moronic TV personality] and [dickbiscuit homophobic politician] can do it then it can’t be that hard, can it?
-“But poets, or those who imagine and express this indestructible order, are not only the authors of language and of music, of the dance, and architecture, and statuary, and painting: they are the institutors of laws, and the founders of civil society, and the inventors of the arts of life, and the teachers, who draw into a certain propinquity with the beautiful and the true that partial apprehension of the agencies of the invisible world which is called religion.” Got that?
-Feel free to add your own in the comments!
Script by Adam Katz
Cinematography by Erika Grumet
Executive Producer: Rocket
Starring Frob as Big Cat and Widget as Little Cat
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Description
Three panels, each depicting two cats in conversation with each other. A large orange wearing the benevolent expression of someone who is winning at cards, and a small grey who frankly looks like he just lost all his money at cards. The large orange is holding forth on a topic of which he is an expert.
“Hey, I just finished a poem,” he yowls.
The little grey has his interest piqued: “I’ve always wondered: how can you tell when a poem is finished?”
The large orange answers with a knowing smile: “Well. First, you revise and edit.”
“Got it,” says the grey.
“Then you obsess over meaningless details until you drive yourself insane.”
“Wait, what?”
The orange rides over the grey’s protest, however: “Then you get fed up with it and leave it alone for six months.”
“Yeesh.”
“Finally,” the orange concludes, “you stumble across it and say: Eh. Good enough.”
