AD HOCKED POEMS

Dispatches from the Dumbing Down

Generation Z is notoriously hard to nail down for advertisers. How do you market to young people when they don’t watch TV and they don’t have the patience for an ad that isn’t amateurish, 7 seconds long, and inserted between a doomscroll video of a “talking” cat and a woman acting out both sides of a conversation at the DMV?

The answer is to put ads in the one place 20-somethings are required to buy and possibly even look at at least once every six months: their college textbooks.

And so a deal was struck between The American Beer Council and a certain omnipresent college textbook company to insert ads in the form of poems that mimic, but are not legally identical to, classical poetry.

I was hired to write these poems. Below are three examples of my work:

BUDWEIZYMANDIUS

I met a traveler from an antique land,
Who said: “A vast and tapless keg of stone
Does stand in the desert… Near it on the sand
Half sunk, a crumpled Solo red cup,
With broken lip, and faded brand,
Tell that its owner, once beer pong champ,
Slept with phallus drawn on face and hand,
And on the pedestal these words appear:

‘I am Budweizymandius, King of Beers:
Look on my malted barley hops ye thirsty and despair!’
Nothing beside remains, except further on the beach,
Some young women, rumps exposed to air,
And a few six-packs within easy reach.”

— from Intro to Poetry, 11th Edition: With Partner Offers from the American Beer Council
(Chapter 3: “Transience and the American Macrobrew”)

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT BUD LIGHT

Do not go gentle into that Bud Light,
Middle age should rave til almost eight,
Rage, rage against the drinking of Busch Lite.

Real men of genius know the caloric count’s right,
And will allow them to keep a healthy weight,
Do not go gentle into that Bud Light.

Michelob Ultra tastes of utter shite,
With bikini girls dancing even for Green Bay,
Rage, rage against the drinking of Coors Light.

And you, my drunk father, with beer flight,
Curse, bless me with burps, farts I pray,
Do not go gentle into that Bud Light,
Rage, rage against the drinking of Busch Lite.

— from Intro to Poetry, 11th Edition: With Partner Offers from the American Beer Council
(Chapter 10: “Rage Against the Lite: Poetic Resistance and Low-Calorie Lagers”)

THE LOVE SONG OF J. ALFRED ROLLING ROCK

Guardatemi ora, sto scrivendo in latino.
O forse è italiano. Non sono mai stato bravo con le lingue,
ho fallito il primo anno di spagnolo
per quattro anni di fila. Il che è davvero impressionante.
Ma dato che questo è scritto su un libro di testo universitario,
darò per scontato che non capirete questa prefazione.

Let us go then you and I,
When happy hour spreads out against a quarter to five
Like a wino anesthesized upon the curb;
Let us go, with half-evacuated bladders,
Past beckoning bayaderes
To this cool bar I know.

In the room, the women come and talk,
Of how much they love that Rolling Rock.

For I have known them all already, known them all -
Have known the DJs, tech bros, influencers, plugs,
I have measured out my life with beer mugs.
I know the voices drinking with a drinking fall
Beneath the hip-hop music from a VIP room,
So how should I presume?

Shall I say I have driven drunk through narrow streets,
And watched the smoke from the exhaust pipes of my cool red sports car,
Very expensive,
And young women in halter top belly shirts, leaning out of windows? . . .

I grow horny . . . I grow horny . . .
I shall tell my jokes all corny.

And the bikini girls come and drink Rolling Rock,
And speak of how they love my enormous -

(A ONCE-FAMOUS RAPPER JUMPS INTO THE SCENE, SURROUNDED BY DANCERS)

Listen mother*bleep* I ain't Prince Hamlet!
I just want cold refreshment damn it!
We lingered in the chambers of the sea, y'all!
With bottle girls vapin’ weed, y'all!
Till human voices wake us and we drown, y'all!
In a pool of ROLLING ROCK!

— from Intro to Poetry, 11th Edition: With Partner Offers from the American Beer Council
(Chapter 14: “Modernist Alienation and the ‘Happy’ Hour at Buffalo Wild Wings”)