Kim M. Baker has been teaching writing in academe and business for 19 years. As the Writing Specialist, Professor Baker supports all law students as they work to improve their writing skills, beginning in Legal Methods first year and continuing through seminar papers, writing samples, test...
How about a little mid-week poetry to shake up your neurons? I wrote this poem in April for a contest sponsored by the Chronicle of Higher Education. The prompt was to write a poem based on/in response to/or just tangentially related to a poem by John Keats called "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer."
Hip Hop Homer:
After Keats’s “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer”
Yo, yo Homer. He’s a freakin’ home boy.
Never done much trippin’.
‘Cept when he was sippin’ MaiTais at the local.
Still, he ain’t no yokel.
Bounces in the realms of gold.
Shit. He got a boat load.
Make it shakin’ hip hop ‘bout his Mamma’s boyfriends.
New one’s from Tribeca. Think he know DiNero.
But he just a serial sponger from da projects.
Planet of the Scumbags. Someone gonna pop him.
Need to read some Keats, yo, ‘bout a guy named Chapman.
And his home boy, Homer, goin’ to da islands.
Fourteen lines of freedom. Skies full of eagles.
Many goodly states, yo. Can’t wait for dat season.