Poetry

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Tanya's poetry "Retelling": "Dreams of Pan" Tanya's poetry books: "Tarot Haiku" "Celestial Animals" "A Sampler Of Poems"

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· Artist's Statement · In Case You Have Not Visited Before · For Mary Burmeister · Dusk at the Bookstore · Dream, January 10, 2004 · Alameda Lilacs · Marina Village · Mother · Full Moon · Gas Station, Orange County · Wet Boots · Scrap Book	· At The Tea Garden ~and~ For You · Divorce · A Letter to the Dead · The Singel · Spring Rain · for jg · Idea · Is It For You · Autumn Diptych · My Computer Doesn't Like Poetry · Bill ~and~ Inland Mendocino
· Portrait of Dorothy Van Ghent Listening to Glenn Gould's Bach

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My Computer Doesn't Like Poetry

My computer doesn't like poetry.
It capitalizes the first letter of lines whether I want it to
Or not.
Green underlining means
It doesn't like my syntax.
When it goes red, it doesn't like the way I
Spell.
It objects to
	Big blue box
As a line of its own. It objects to three adjectives
In a row. It doesn't like my
Prepositional phrases. In the line
	Who ended her poem
It objects to poem in red even though I spelled it right.
	I want a special computer for poetry. All kinds of
		Indentations	And spacing, and line
				Breaks.
A little window has popped up on my screen
All by itself. It starts talking to me about
Why it doesn't like my syntax.
"It looks like you're writing a letter," it says of my poem.
The window speaks in a cartoon balloon. "Would you like	
				Help?"
A paper clip bent into a smile
Tells me these words with glue-on eyes
Like you buy at the fabric store.
The paper clip has an illuminated light bulb
Over its head to show it has a		Good Idea.
"Get help with writing the letter	or	just type the letter	
	without help		or	Cancel."
The eyes open and close. The paper clip wiggles back
And forth to get my attention
In a friendly manner. I take pleasure in	Cancelling
and the double L in cancel
	as a gerund 		that it doesn't like
And I go on with my line about the box
And the woman who ended her poem.

"My Computer Doesn't Like Poetry" - Third Prize, Humour Category, The Poets' Dinner, 2002

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