From: “Squirmtrap” Squirmtrap@wormneverdies.org
To: “Sulphino” Sulphino@wormneverdies.org
Subject: Poetry

My Dear Sulphino,

So your patient has taken up poetry. You inquired as to whether this interest should be encouraged or not. It depends, my dear cousin, it depends.

On one hand, activities and pursuits that inspire your patient to observe more carefully and appreciate the world around her are usually to be avoided. If her awkward verse (I read the sample you included…dreadful) helps turn her thoughts toward the Enemy and His creation, you would do well to divert her attention to other pursuits. Perhaps you could put the idea into her head to begin watching more television to gather writing material. One of those “bare-it-all” talk shows would be ideal, but at this point it’s unlikely your patient would select that sort of program. You may have to settle for the news. At the very least, its tendency to focus on crime, accidents, political shenanigans, and “natural” disasters often has the benefit of depressing the viewer. If bombarded with this sort of thing day after day, your patient may even develop a vague sense of uneasiness about whether the Enemy truly is in control of His creation. One must be careful…some patients may be driven to more frequent prayer. Others, however, may be successfully manipulated into developing an increasingly skewed perspective of life—seeing the world not as a gift, as the Enemy intended, but as a horror—a haven for predators and hucksters; a place of danger and pain; fragile and unstable, ever on the verge of annihilation. Ah, such delightful paranoia! It is then only a small step to convince such patients that the Enemy (if, they wonder, He exists at all) resembles mighty Zeus—-vengeful, capricious, and all in all, much too powerful for his own good. (Not altogether an inaccurate view of the Enemy, eh, Sulphino?)

But back to the matter at hand…If your patient’s poem-writing leads her to spend an inordinate amount of time wallowing in her own emotions, it may be best not to discourage it. Even better if she begins to take undue pride in her attempts.

Please note: I said undue pride. Being pleased or even proud of her work will not, in and of itself, cause her any harm. The Enemy Himself declared His own work “good” (we know, of course, that He is the very picture of vanity and self-absorption so often mistakenly attributed to Our Father Below). Your patient’s pleasure must not come from the writing itself or from the subject matter, but from being recognized (more specifically, envied) for her writing accomplishments.

Of course, given the quality of your patient’s verse, it’s rather unlikely that publication is on the horizon. At this point, the only writing for which she has received any sort of recognition was an essay entitled “What Parker’s Pinto Beans Mean to Me.”

See if you can’t help her out a bit, will you, Sulphino? Her current poem, “Traveling the Road to Regret,” needs much work if it is ever going to excite envy. You needn’t worry about rhyme or meter, incidentally. Order and structure are often held in disdain among the human “creative types.” A wailing and whining in free verse may be just the sort thing to get her published—not to mention its potential value in stirring up discontent with her own life.

Your affectionate cousin,
Squirmtrap