What are you doing right now?

[EndOfTheEarth]

Besides posting on here and replying to this thread. Original credit for this goes back to Fate and Nathan on MX.

[Contradiction]

Having fun on TV Tropes. 15 tabs open. >.>

[Hannah]

I can't do this. I'm going to die if I have to analyze one more freaking poem about something that the author was too much of a jerk to actually clue us in on. I hate metrics, I hate rhetorical figures, and I hate deeper meaning with a burning passion.

Fuck this whole thing. Specifically, fuck Edgar Allen Poe, fuck Robert Frost, and fuck Emily Dickinson.

Nothing personal, dudes, but you're making my highschool experience a living hell.

[nathan_p]

Deeper meaning is total bullshit, if that helps at all :V I hold it in high contempt, especially when it's something the author never said.

[Contradiction]

especially when it's something the author never said.

My eighth grade teacher was the worst about this.

No. The apple is a fucking apple. Not a symbol.

And my class insisted that the red, white, and blue cover of 1984 was symbolic. >.<'

[Hannah]

EXACTLY. I mean, if this teacher was so great at poetry, why is he teaching?

Cause he's evil and wants to ruin my life, that's why.

[EndOfTheEarth]

On a discussion on deeper meaning last semester, I convinced the class that the entire poem was about a guy who loved going out to the local ice cream truck. Good writing involves a little interpretation, but if that's what your entire piece is about, then there's no point in writing.

My favorite example:
Last semester, I presented by class with this poem:
To see is to understand.
To understand is to see.
To understand this, see.
See to understand this.
See, you understand this.
Do you understand this?
They went on for a good forty five minutes discussing possible deeper meanings, trying to discern if there was a numerical pattern to the style, trying to see if it was a portrayal of real life things or deeper issues of the narrator. When they finished, they asked me how I came up with it.
My answer was as follows:
"I came up with the first and last lines at eight in the morning while walking to my macroeconomics class, solely because they sounded inspirational and thought provoking. Then I messed around slightly with the wording of one, slowly working toward the other, with the only rule being that the line had to make some sort of sense when said aloud. That's it. No deeper meaning."

[Contradiction]

XDD

[nathan_p]

Aww, that's bull. Do you not have one?

[nathan_p]

Yeah, a cell phone.

Also that's weird. Google didn't ask for that last time.

[nathan_p]

Ah. Give them 867-5309 plus your area code. They'll never check.

[Contradiction]

I just created a gmail account, and it never asked for text verification.

[Contradiction]

I could make you one, and then you could just change the password.