AFC+: Pasteurized Poetry!

by Art Fag City on June 18, 2009 · 4 comments Events

POST BY JULIA HALPERIN
Art Fag City, Murakami, Cream, Haiku, Dairy
Cream, 1998, one of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami's dairy-oriented artworks (Caption via: the Guardian)

Editor’s note: AFC+ is a series in which interns respond to internet culture and art world events.

Anime and milk
Why are you so delicious?
yum yum yum yum yum
-AFC

Here's a question you probably never thought to ask: What happens when you mix dairy products and haiku? The result is the Online Dairy Ode Contest, sponsored by the Oxford County Library of Ontario, Canada. The site describes itself as an “internet-based cheese poetry contest for all poets” (as opposed to, apparently, the exclusively dairy-oriented ones). While the contest seems to be in hibernation—the submissions are from 2001 to 2005—we think it is in need of a revival. Our personal favorites: a poem titled “To a Vain Cheese” (in the style of Lord Byron's “To a Vain Lady”) and the three-line gem “Cheese Please,” posted after the jump. For these and more calcium-rich fun, read the archived submissions here—and feel free to leave your own poem in the comments.

To a Vain Cheese
(a cheese parody in the style of Lord Byron’s “To a Vain Lady”)
by Bryan Yeung and other OCL staff
(Kara Van Slyke, Heather Graydon, and Sean Minty)

Ah, heedless cheese? why thus disclose
What ne’re was meant for mortal nose
Why thus destroy the world’s repose
And dig the source of future lows?

Vain Cheese! They ling’ring woes are nigh
If thou believ’st what your makers say
Oh from the deep milk curds fly
Not fall the yucky spoiler’s prey

Dost thou repeat, in cheesy boast,
the words olfactories decry
Thy curds, thy whey, thy all is lost
and seven maids a milking cry

While now amongst thy dairy peers
rumours are that you’ve gone stale
Canst thou not mark the jeering leers
filtered masks alone will veil?

Cease, if you prize your recent fad
this rot into a sticky paste
One, who is thus from nature bad
I pity but I cannot taste.

Cheese Please
by C.L. Denton
Soft crumbly white cheese
Greek salad broken in two
ah sweet feta

{ 4 comments }

L.M. June 18, 2009 at 7:58 pm

Dairy-oriented art is so elitist.

L.M. June 18, 2009 at 2:58 pm

Dairy-oriented art is so elitist.

Amory Blaine June 26, 2009 at 1:35 pm

Uh, that’s not dairy.

Amory Blaine June 26, 2009 at 8:35 am

Uh, that’s not dairy.

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