It occurred to me the other day that I haven’t written any creative English for quite a while and in fact don’t write that much at all now that there are no school essays and exams. To rectify this and brush up on my fading literary skills providing you with an informative blog I have decided to pen (or keyboard) several short poems each focusing on a different aspect of literary form and item of interest from Japan.
The first aspect I want to focus on is that of illiteration. Listening to some recent pop songs on the radio I realised that the best selling songwriters of today have in fact developed a whole new literary form which they are then applying to their songs to sell millions of records. If these masters of modern day poetry are successfully using this style and making money from it then there must be some inherent quality to this form. Fine examples of illiteration include Master Bieber’s Baby, which achieved a position of number 3 in the UK singles sales chart in March 2010; Miss Gaga’s Telephone, which reached number 1 in the UK singles chart also in March 2010; Miss Rihanna’s Umbrella, number 1 in June 2007 on the UK singles chart; and finally Miss Minaj’s Stupid Hoe (Stupid Stupid in the clean version) reaching number 63 in the UK singles chart in February 2012.*
A traditional poet might decide to use many different words with similar sounds to enhance and intensify a particular phrase or feeling but this is often time consuming and there may not even be a suitable word with the same sound in some cases. The genius of Master Bieber et al. lies in the subtle subversion of this style and instead of using different words just repeat the same phrase, word and indeed sound multiple times, especially during the chorus, thus guaranteeing that each word begins with the same letter, to really show they are illiterative. This also has the added benefit of saving them time and therefore money as they don’t have to think of lots of different words for their songs.
So what of Japan? Another trend found amongst our poets du jour of singing about mundane objects (see Miss Gaga’s Telephone and Miss Rihanna’s Umbrella). This ability to sing about the mundane isn’t limited to American artists though, the Japanese are just as capable and stars such as Kyary Pamyu Pamyu sing about false eyelashes (worth a watch)with great use of illiteration which you can see in the lyrics underneath. Popular girl group Perfume is also able to sing about doughnuts (lyrics here). In honour of these two trends I shall therefore dedicate my first practice poem to illiteration and banality.
Here is my poem: Rock
Oh rocking rock you rock my world, I’m in my rocking chair,
Oh rocking world you rock my rock, I’m rocking in my chair,
You rocked so hard like the hard rock you are, I rocked out of my rocking chair,
Now I’m rocking with my rock on the rocky floor with my rocking rocking chair,
Rock rock rock rock rock rock r-rock rock rock r-r-rock. Rock.
Now you may complain that my effort doesn’t contain much progression of theme or emotion, conclusion, clever rhymes or comprehensible metre. But I think that in fact emulates the greats of the moment quite accurately and so I shall let it stand as is. Criticisms, haranguings or slights against my personal character for showing these artists the proper respect they deserve are welcome in the comments below.
*Viewing any of these videos is completely at the reader's discretion. No responsibility will be accepted by the management for offense to sensibilities, common decency or musical taste and in the case of Stupid Hoe, epilepsy or a gnawing off one’s own elbows.
