The Joy of Writing Badly

Today at the monthly Grand Rapids Region Writers Group, author Tanya Eby led us through an exercise on writing bad odes.

The point? As she says on her blog, "Because we worry so much about writing well, that we forget to write fun. And it’s a fun exercise because the entire goal is to suck, and suck hard. So if you’re a bad writer, you’ll be great at this. You will wear a cape of Badness which in this case is good."

So please check out Tanya's Ode to a Spatula.

And here is my tribute to America's favorite vegetable:

Ode to Ketchup
O’ majestic red sauce
in your curvy plastic casing,
you flavor my life
with your sweet tomato combination.
Where would I be without
your cloak to cover the
burnt taste of overcooked meat.
Thank you, dear ketchup,
for being the condiment
to my life.