I have been to several universities in my time, with different majors, until I finally decided I should become an English major, to help with my desire to write books. When I was going to Utah State, my fourth and final (for now) university, I decided to take a poetry class. I wasn't very good at poetry, but it was fun to learn a different medium.
As the semester neared Valentine's Day, the professor gave us the fun assignment of drawing the name of one of our classmates, and then writing them a bad Valentine poem, which we would then share with the class before presenting to our "Classmate Valentine". I had drawn one of my male classmates, and so went to task on writing the worst poem I could possibly conceive, hoping he would at least think it was funny. On the day of, I read my poem aloud before presenting it to him, and I was blown away by the uproarious laughter that ensued while reading this poem to my "Valentine." People knew I was married, and had asked me what my husband thought of me writing such a poem, and I merely laughed and said that my husband thought it was hilarious, and was not creeped out at all, (but the kid I gave the Valentine to might've been, haha.)
On the last day of class, our professor went around and asked us what our favorite assignment was and the best part of the class, and my "Classmate valentine" pulled out my poem and said that this was his favorite thing all year, and several people agreed, and told him to read the poem again aloud. Laughter ensued, and everyone told me again what an amazing job I had done. No joke, I walked on air for two weeks afterwards, and I really felt like I maybe I could make it as a writer, and all because people liked my bad poem.
And now, just the other day, I had been going through several old documents on my computer and had found this poem, and since Valentine's Day is just around the corner, I wanted to share it with you today. It is one of the pieces that gave me great joy to write, and it gave that poetry class at my university great joy to hear.
Be aware, it is very bad, and pretty creepy, so just keep that in mind: this poem was made to be laughed at, and just all sorts of bad!
Enjoy, and Happy Valentine's Day!
2/11/2015 by Chantel Burnham