Eva Wiseman: An introduction to spoetry

Eva Wiseman: Some spam emails are filled with nonsense. Others simply fill the heart. Recently, under a colourful link to a website selling penis extensions, I found a poetic jewel.

Some spam emails are filled with nonsense. Others simply fill the heart. Recently, under a colourful link to a website selling penis extensions, I found this poetic jewel:

Elizabeth you siren me, coriander. glasswort you alveolus me, chocks.

Dastard you backyard me, colonial cybernetic. risen you begrudge me,

Baccarat rebuke alfresco

This nugget of verse was not created entirely by chance. Bayesian filters, anti-spam programs which rank words in emails according to undesirability, can be fooled when said bad words (Cialis, mortgage, porn) are broken up with arbitrary prose. A message screaming cock pump drug pimp for example, will be filtered out, but if it's couched with terms such as hawk, seize, hence and triumvirate, the spam will be eluded and your inbox will receive a surreal and striking surprise.

In an unedited, authorless spoem (spam poem) "aardvarks sweat in gibbon rucksacks" and "freight trains rejoice toothpicks, merrily".

Reminiscent of Ezra Pound, or William Burroughs' cut-ups, spoetry transcends its mundane commercial aim and becomes, yes, art. "There's no doubt that 'random' word combination can be fantastic," says Dr Philip West of Oxford University. "The ungrammatical use of nouns as verbs is something Shakespeare was very fond of, as, famously, in King Lear when Edgar says 'He childed as I fathered'."

So should Faber & Faber be publishing a volume of spoetry? To assess the genre's literary merit, we invited Paul Edwards, professor of English and history of art at Bath Spa University to critique our inbox sonnets.

Bosom it had sprung [advert for discount Rolexes]

When she was first over and over again.

She rubs everything that can be rubbed, until

It was originally, I think, eight thousand pounds, Consols?

said she had patted me on the shoulder, and sat down in my chair

bosom it had sprung from his mouth,

I think, looking fixedly at I

fell into a brown study as I walked on, and a voice at my side

PE: With its disrupted phrases and clauses, the poem mirrors the channelling of the old stable ego into flows that are continuously redirected, interrupted and abandoned. Thought and desire suddenly jump the rails to take new directions: "looking fixedly at I fell into a brown study as I walked on, and a voice at my side". When, erotically, she rubs "everything that can be rubbed", the original £8,000 expands to an unknown larger sum. Aladdin is present here, too, with his lamp - also rubbed as a key to desire.

The bosom that springs from his mouth images the eroticism of acquisition, the fantasy of being "first over and over again": the American dream of (in Scott Fitzgerald's words), "a fresh, green breast of the new world".

Contributor

Eva Wiseman

The GuardianTramp

Related Content

Article image
Steampunk culture: an introduction
Next month sees a steampunk festival in Lincoln. Here's what you need to know . . .

Naomi Alderman

08, Aug, 2010 @6:59 PM

Article image
Holiday downloads: what to put in your digital suitcase
We now spend more time deciding what to take with us on our tablets, phones and e-readers than we do packing our bags. Here’s how to organise your digital luggage

Chitra Ramaswamy

08, Aug, 2016 @1:08 PM

Article image
Think digital distractions have killed our attention spans? Think again

The rise of complex TV series and vast novels shows we still prefer commitment to a quick fix, writes Stuart Jeffries

Stuart Jeffries

05, Nov, 2013 @6:37 PM

Article image
Can the Hawking Index tell us when people give up on books?

By counting which pages readers highlight on their Kindles, a new scale attempts to measure how far people persist with certain well-known books. Bad news for Capital – and Fifty Shades of Grey

07, Jul, 2014 @2:09 PM

Article image
How to become an ebook superstar

A growing number of ambitious authors are turning to self-publishing. But how do they translate their aspirations into success?

Patrick Barkham

06, Jun, 2012 @7:00 PM

Article image
How a coyote became a cyberspace star

Shreve Stockton fell in love with a day-old orphaned coyote in Wyoming - so began a beautiful relationship

Stuart Jeffries

12, Jan, 2009 @12:01 AM

Aida Edemariam on sifting through the publishing industry's slush pile

Most publishers no longer read unsolicited manuscripts - but that doesn't stop writers sending them in. Aida Edemariam, who has rejected more submissions than she cares to remember, investigates

Aida Edemariam

03, Sep, 2008 @11:01 PM

Article image
Game on – Spec Ops: the Line
If you're going to base a game on a book, Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness isn't a bad choice

Tom Meltzer

21, Jun, 2012 @9:00 PM

Article image
Stuart Jeffries on science-fiction writer Alastair Reynolds

His latest book is set 6.4m years in the future and he's just secured a £1m book deal. Stuart Jeffries enters the fantastic world of Alastair Reynolds

Stuart Jeffries

12, Jul, 2009 @11:01 PM

Article image
Zoe Williams: talks to author Zoe Margolis aka Abby Lee
Her anonymous sex blog was a runaway success; the book of the blog is a bestseller. But last weekend the true identity of author ‘Abby Lee’ was revealed - and her life was turned upside down. In her first interview, Zoe Margolis talks to Zoe Williams about porn, feminism and breaking the news of her secret writing career to her parents.

Zoe Williams

11, Aug, 2006 @8:53 AM