Black Hippy Chick Day: A Note About Ambition

If you go to an open mic on any given evening anywhere in the world, you will usually hear an infinite series of cute McPoems that sound lovely but say little. Donald Hall invented the word “McPoem” in his book, Poetry and Ambition. The book is snobbish as hell. Ask me. I’m reading it, but it has one important thing to say: Easy, shallow writing is replacing all the ambitious work of bygone eras. An open mic poem isn’t tortured over or deeply felt. It’s scrawled onto a serviette and never edited before it is read. It doesn’t take much thinking to write a McPoem. Just grab one of the themes everyone’s already written a thousand times before and put it into cute new words.

It’s not enough. McPoems are fun in certain situations, but there is still room for ambition and for greatness. There is still room for exposing new truths and raw emotions. The pen is supposed to be mightier than the sword, but McPoems aren’t mighty at all. All they’ll do is fill your stomach with a greasy mess, and few nutrients to speak of.

Thinking is the great work of any writer. We are philosophers, and our role is to bring depth and meaning to our readers. If we aren’t learning new things about life and the human condition, our writing will slowly begin to fail. If you have nothing to say, the solution is not to write a McPoem. It’s to go out and learn something new. Read. Think. If you’re not an alcoholic, a glass of champagne on a beach somewhere could be all that stands between you and literary greatness.

Writers are not just tasked with setting words down. We are tasked with the job of finding deeper truths that nobody has considered yet. Achieving that goal requires great introspection and a whole lot of listening to greater minds than our own. Writer’s block can be cured with a creativity exercise, but maybe a book of philosophy would serve us better.

McPoems are easily accessible, but they will never win The Booker Prize. Shoot for greatness. You will never achieve it unless you choose to seek it out.

It’s rather ironic that we’re doing comedy writing this week because your prompts are going to fly in the face of everything I just said, but what can you do?

Your Comedy Prompts for the Day:

Conversation Cheat Sheet for Vegans

Scout Badges for the Middle-Aged

What I Thought My Life Would Be Like After Decanting All My Spices into Mason Jars

Famous Literary Quotes About Love Rewritten by a Woman Whose Friends Are All Getting Married and Having Children While She Is Taking an Introduction to Ceramics Class