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Welcome to my poetry page... here you can find selections of my verse dating as far back as junior high school, or as recently as last month. Some is bad, some is good, some is serious, some is just plain silly. Enjoy!
Poems written in junior high and high school
Sidewalk
Written for senior English class in high school.
Canterbury Alien
In my senior year of high school, my English class read the stories told by several characters in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," and then we were each assigned to create a new character and have that character tell a new story. Being who I was, I insisted on making my character a space alien, and telling its story in a sort of fakey spoof-Middle-English.
The Love Sonnet of Astronaut Arnold
What difficulties one can encounter in space...
Chemistry Problems
I'm bad at chemistry, but good at puns.
My Fingernail
Inspired by slamming my finger in a door. Not for the faint of stomach.
What My Mom Built For Me
Sometimes I swear my mother has a secret Y chromosome somewhere.
The Ballad of Noah's Ark and the Fishes
During the biblical flood, what happened to the animals that lived in the water?
Hippocampus
Speculations on cerebral anatomy.
KS Theory
Predictions regarding Kansas.
Macawbeth
A silly sonnet. What if Macbeth were a parrot?
Stairway Love
One of the first poems I wrote in high school. I was lonely.
Unlikeliness
Alien invasion is really quite unlikely.
Coincidence?
More fun with alien invasions.
Vidiots
In junior high school, I was fed up with my cousins' video game obsession.
Clytemnestra's
Remorse
Well, Mr. Froehle wanted us to use those words in
sentences, and we were studying Agamemnon...
A Narrow
Fellow
As a high school soph, I was asked to do a parody...
Poems written for fun during college
Human Alien (Quicktime music video) 2.08 mb
While studying abroad in 2002, I wrote this song. Unfortunately, I don't know how to write music, and my voice is completely untrained, and I wasn't quite decided on how the tune was going to go for some of the verses. If you know a musician who can make something better out of it, please let me know.
Macaroni Penguin
The macaroni penguin, like the macaroni pasta, got its name from the Italian word "macaroni," which means something like "magnificent" or "dearest darlings" (sources differ on the exact definition). However, the penguin-- whom you can see here-- thinks it was named after the pasta, and has rather indignant feelings about that.
Don't Make My
Dreams Come True
I had a dream. I wrote a song about it. It's
supposed to be sung to a sort of country-western tune. (Not intended for George W. Bush fans.)
Sich Aendert
die Englische Sprache
A parody of Heinrich Heine's "Die Jahre
Kommen und Gehen." To get it, you have to have read that poem in the
original German, and also know some things about linguistics, like the fact that the English language used to have genders for all nouns.
Her Solution
Just another of those stories about a king, a princess and a dragon... except the princess has attitude.
Within the Walls
The best (?) of two worlds: more high-brow linguistic play, sung to the tune of a song I learned on the bus to day camp.
Man and God
What does "playing God" really mean?
Pun with the Wind
Just another bad pun.
Ups and Downs
More hippopotamus poetry.
Haiku
A silly haiku in German.
Coo-Coo Haiku
A silly haiku in English.
The Most
Important Letter In My Name
People misspell my first name a lot.
Here's a song to help them remember.
Love poems written for the course "Language of Desire," which I took in January as a college soph or junior. Note that some of them are slightly R-rated.
Beholder
A poem with geographical metaphors.
Celebrate
An aubade, or morning poem.
Bras
A poem inspired by Carl Phillips.
Lovers' Block
A poem fitting, as I see it, "the Contemporary Aesthetic."
Laments of the Creation
A dramatic monologue.
Desperate
A poem with animal metaphors.
Fiction
A sonnet.
Language of Love
Another sonnet.
Non-Love Poem
A Ghazal: a series of couplets that appear completely unrelated, but have a common theme nonetheless.
Lecture, LOV
101
A paraphrase of a Shakespeare sonnet.
Streetlight Serenade
An evening poem.
On a Maroon-and-White Sweatshirt
A poem inspired by Anne Sexton.
Unrequited
A Tanka: a form of Asian short poetry, similar to the haiku.
My Word
A love poem from one inanimate object to another.
Thanks for visiting!
Send me feedback at humanalien@gmail.com
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Erika Hammerschmidt's Poetry