Way down there? No joke?
Never know it from your accent.
I know the Mexican countries:
Spain, South Hemisphere, Jamaica—
your country, too.
Disney's cruise line
stopped off in Cancún.
and extended basic cable
includes CNN and Discovery.
Never wanted to go there, though.
I do enjoy a cup of coffee,
but Taco Bell is disgusting.
Plus, I don't do drugs,
and I'm terrified of snakes.
When I travel,
I stick to the States:
Illinois, Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, Ohio;
also Memphis and Texas,
and other parts of South America.
Let's not forget the Civil War.
Christopher Columbus and George Jefferson
chased you all across the border.
Figures you named your little country
after our first President.
Amigo, I never had you figured
for a tea-sipping sissy.
I was guessing Minnesota.
A contest entry
- Nationalism by unknownpleasure.
401 points, ended June 3, 2007, 8 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - MAKE ME LAUGH! -PW allowed by Heva Feva.
800 points, ended August 12, 34 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest - Make Me Laugh My Socks Off! by LonelyAngel.
900 points, ended November 7, 115 entries
• next poem in this contest, remove from contest
Please tell me what you think
Comments
1 - 23 of 23
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Great geography lesson.
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You always nail your final stanzas, Morgan. 
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Haha... Awesome poem
Good luck and thanks for entering my contest. Also, thanks for making me laugh!
-heva
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"I know the Mexican countries:
Spain, South Hemisphere, Jamaica—
your country, too.
Disney's cruise line
stopped off in Cancún.
and extended basic cable
includes CNN and Discovery."
Priceless!!
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This is hilarious. I love it. I lived south of Vancouver, BC for 5 years. Everyone should visit there. Gorgeous! I am from the Northeastern US, and when my husband came home one day from work he asked "How would you like to live in British Columbia?" I said "Great! Where's British Columbia?"
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Nice poem and exquisite travelling. I travelled the same paths and they are awesome. Thankx for the memories.
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Chuckling
I am glad I went down through the comments here because I was confused about the title too but your explanation makes this piece that much better. I about fell off my chair at "Christopher Columbus and George Jefferson".
My goodness, and that last line? Very good. I know before I moved to MA from Northern MN, everyone thought I was nuts! After all, unless you know better, everything east of the Mississippi river must be - concrete. LOL. This was a pleasure to read and enjoy. Thank you. ~Pamela
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Of course, to be fair, I may as well add that a number of years back I was in Ontario ( the other side of Canuckland ) at a bank, and the teller asked me where I lived when I went to withdraw funds on my debit card. I said Vancouver, British Columbia. She gets a rather distressed look on her face, but it's fleeting and she brightly says
"and whereabouts in the U.S is that?"
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hahahahhah
of course.... its like when i get asked if i know the Queen, just cause i live in Britain..
how very dare they... lololololololol
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Whoa!
Are you saying you DON'T know the Queen?! I thought she lived in Britain.
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snorts... hahhahaha
sorry to dissapoint you an'all... -
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Oh, yeah ...
You must think I'm such a fool. I forgot - she's the Queen of ENGLAND. -
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now stop it.. it is not funny squirting water down one's nose..
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hahahaa.....
ouch.. the title caught me since I live in British Columbia part of the Great White North.. or is that Canuckland?
I love the way you've used tone here... so I'll share my favorite bit of 'nationalism' with you.
There's a place here, Gastown, the roads are still cobbled. It's a typical day in Lotusland ( here ) midsummer, years ago. ( there's the setting ).
I was walking down the sidewalk, when a car stops and two people, a man and a woman, both middle-aged or so, spy me and decide I'm the victim. ... the man leans out of the window and says - "Excuse me can you tell me how to get to Kansas?" I'm thinking, no way, this can't be happening it's too perfect too 'good' ..and without any further consideration I said well of course, "get out, tap your heels together, get back in and follow the yellow brick road".. then smiled, before I started laughing and walked away
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I think most of what I want to say about this has already been covered below. I'm quite familiar with the theme here - where do you draw the line between stereotype and fact? My brother lectured geography at an up league U.S. university and the amount of freshmen even at these establishments who didn't know that Africa wasn't a country... I thought he was taking the piss, but now I've seen their term papers. I don't think it's so "extreme".
Back to the poem itself - thanks for the nod to Russia - though surely even the less geographically inclined associate it with cold and the north!? As Zara said, there's some lack of consistency with the amount of names known, to the level of ignorance being professed.
Obviously this is tongue and cheek, but message-laden too. This I like.
I do like the title, but I'm pretty sure for different reasons to what you intended, but still relevant to the contest. The amount of Canadians I've met who base their entire identity solely on the fact that they're not American, yet when you get to know them are almost exactly the same underneath (blame the media, received perception, the bloody nasal accent, whatever! Putting a maple leaf on top of a turd, or calling it a turd, eh, doesn't stop the turd stinking!
Right I'm way off track, this is trophying, but I'm yet to decide on the colour... -
so it turns out u have been posting... and i guess i've just been ignoring u if u've come up on my favorites? or maybe i have too many favorites that post around the time u post, and u somehow disappear.
hmmm.. i'll have to see why i missed this.
this kinda made me chuckle. the whole thing actually. i like how "south america" isnt really South America. That was cute. LoL. And memphis is a state? LoL... hahahaah
i liked it. lol... it sounds like an uneducated hillbillie (hillbilly however u spell it)
poor ignorant fools.
this was cute.
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Your ending made me giggle a little... Nicely done - poetic & mildly sarcastic too, & of course patriotic. But the title choice confused me. Care to explain??
Best of luck in the contest
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Yeah, definitely sarcastic. This is supposed to be a sort of character study of an extreme case of American ethnocentric ignorance. It's one half of a conversation between a worst-case representation of one of my countrymen and a Canadian he runs into.
Some people in this country forget the facts so fast that it just boggles my mind. Imagine someone who gets all his information from TV, and who never really thinks about the outside world otherwise. If you've not watched American network news broadcasts, count yourself lucky and pity us Yankees. Anyway, the name "British Columbia," to someone who didn't pay attention in history class, might bring to mind the following:
British
Tea
Redcoats
The Revolution (We ran them outta here!)
The Civil War (this is an idiot, mind)
Columbia
Coffee
Drugs
Spanish
South of the border
Mexican food (You can't believe how many people think everything south of Texas must be just like Tijuana.)
Throw it all together into one "cohesive" whole, and you get some pretty stupid things. And there really are people who don't know stuff like "Who was our first President?" and "When was the Civil War?"
This write struck me when I was reading zara's author page. The only reason that fact is important is because she is from British Columbia.
Not intended to be beautiful. Mostly just ridiculous, funny, and not at all funny.
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Had to read this, since BC is my home.
I'm confused.
My best shot is that this is the voice of a historical/geographical ignoramus. And that, perhaps, the poem represents a little self-deprecation, referring to the stereotype of Americans as knowing little of lands beyond their borders.
The problem with this latter view is that the narrator of this poem knows little withIN his/her borders. And the problem with the former is that it seems unlikely that anyone who can at least name that many locations would be THAT clueless. Columbus as first president? Not likely.
Here in Canada there was a segment of a TV show, which then became an occasional show on its own, called "Talking to Americans" in which a popular political satirist would set up on-the-street interviewees (often on major university campuses) with absurd questions regarding Canadian policies such as floating our old folk out to sea on icebergs. ("It's got to stop!" said the Harvard professor.)
I think there certainly could be a poem about this kind of thing, but yours pushes the boundaries of plausibility, in my opinion, and thereby loses the humour it tries for.
I do like the last stanza. That's the kind of subtle approach I'd like to see throughout.
Cheers
and I hope it's ok I lambasted you on a contest poem.
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Thank you for the nifty crit. When it comes to things I write, I am pretty much impossible to offend. I welcome any and all input, and especially by anyone who wants to take a few really good whacks.
With regard to my countrymen, I think you're making the mistake of lumping us all into one lot, and Harvard professors are certainly exceptional examples. Try Boonville, MS. I don't watch TV anymore, but some time ago I chanced upon a show called "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" One contestant couldn't name the man on our one-dollar bill. It had to be either Cristobal Colon (Columbus' real name) in the poem, or else Abraham Lincoln. I was particularly proud of "George Jefferson," which is a kludge of our first and third Presidents (George Washington, Thomas Jefferson), and, by coincidence, is also the name of the lead character in the 1980s sitcom "The Jeffersons." "We're movin' on up (We're movin on up)/to the east side/to finally get a piece of the pie...."
I have a confession to make: I know you're from BC. I actually thought of the poem when I read that fact on your page. I said to myself, "Someone who's never heard of that place could get all sorts of stupid ideas about who lives there and where it is." Then I thought of the Union (Northern states)/Confederacy(Southern states)->North America/South America thing, and I was off to the races. I think this will stay posted a really, reallly long time, because it lacks panache. I just wanted something to post for a contest on nationalism. I think you'd have to agree that ignorance, complacency and isolation are sufficient conditions for jingoistic tendencies to emerge. Have seen it myself on so many occasions that I can't count them all. I met some folks (in Tennessee, which is not so far away) who thought my home state of Iowa was a "town up north of here." Good thing a lot of those folks don't vote.
Anyway, thanks again for the lambasting. Please feel no obligation to be nice about what you read. I am on here for the criticism, almost exclusively. Best way to write better, I figure.
Best,
Morgan
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well, yeah, I felt pretty safe critiquing, cuz I know that's what you're here for, but some people are a might touchy on the contest thingy.
no no no, I said "stereoptypical" for a reason. I know there are at least 2 or 3 lots of you.
gawd, you mean I inspired this? (or at least my page...) Please write "Ode on a Grecian Urn" next, ok?
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really interesting in that tongue-n-cheek way, and the finish is quite surprising, the assonance is working in places but could use some more, perhaps. LOL, man.
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^_^ i'm procrastinating & reading & its rather amusing. it reminds me of history class. ;p
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